- FIRST SERIES NO. 108 MAY 1, 1926 
Sn 


UNIVERSITY OF IOWA 
STUDIES 


a a 


STUDIES IN CHILD 
WELFARE 





VOLUME III NUMBER 4 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF MOTOR 
CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG 
CHILDREN » 


An Experimental Study in the Control of Hand 
and Arm Movements 


by 


Betu WELLMAN, PH.D. 


PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY, IOWA CITY 


Issued semi-mo pity ure ughout the yea Entered at the postoffice at Iowa City, Iowa, 


cond class matter under the a of October 8, 1917 
“LBNOS 
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164 
v. 3: 4 


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UNIVERSITY OF IOWA 
STUDIES IN CHILD ;“* 
WELFARE 





Proressor Birp T. Baupwin, PH.D., Editor 


FROM THE IOWA CHILD WELFARE RESEARCH STATION 


VOLUME Ill NUMBER 4 


THE DEVELOPMENT OF MOTOR 
CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG 
CHILDREN 


An Experimental Study in the Control of Hand 
and Arm Movements 


by 


Beto Wewtuiman, Pu.D. 


PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY, IOWA CITY, IOWA 





FOREWORD 


A detailed analysis of the psychological and physiological factors 
in motor control of the hand and arm furnishes the problem for 
this investigation in the motor coordination of young children. Dr. 
Wellman has adapted the. tracing board for laboratory use with 
young children and has devised a practical tracing path for labora- 
tory use with children and adults. Her data include approximately 
8,000 individual records on eight selected directions of movement, 
by 186 little children. 

The method is experimental and analytical, with significant 
results with regard to individual differences, handedness, age, 
and the influence of direction of movement, suggestion, and prac- 
tice. No apparent sex differences are found, apparently no 
transfer from one direction to another, and no close relationship 
between intelligence and these special motor abilities. The bibli- 
ography furnishes valuable references in the field of motor control, 
and the conclusions from the study have a direct bearing on motor 
development and training of little children in motor codrdination. 

This study was accepted as a partial fulfillment of the require- 
ments for the degree of doctor of philosophy in child psychology. 
Other investigations of the grosser movements of the legs, arms, 
hands, and fingers in manual play and physical activities are also 
being pursued in our Preschool Psychological Laboratories with a 
view to making a comprehensive study of motor development dur- 
ing the first six years of childhood. 


Birp T. BALDWIN 
Office of the Director 
Iowa Child Welfare Research Station 
State University of Iowa 
May 1, 1926 





CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 


FOREWORD 
I STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 


II PusBuisHED EXPERIMENTS IN Moror Co-ORDINATION 
Experiments with Young Children 


Experiments with Children Less than Five vitae of 


Age 


Experiments atin Guitrert of nee aie ae veer 


of Age 
Experiments with ne eens Board 
Experimental Analyses of Writing Movements 


III Procepure or EXPERIMENTS 

Tracing Board Experiment 
Materials 
Method of Gonductine Eenenmenti 
Method of Scoring 
Response of Children 

Tracing Path Experiment 
Materials 
Method of Gendron: Menerinent 
Method of Scoring 
Response of Children 


TV QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS 

Reliability of Tests 
Age Differences 
Sex Differences 
Performance with Right om ‘Left rede 
Practice Effects and Transfer of Training 
Relative Difficulties of the Eight Directions 

Tracing Board Experiment 

Tracing Path Experiment . 

Accuracy and Time of Each Trial 


Correlations between Times and between Gs 


on Separate Trials 


6 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 


VI 


Vil 


Correlations between Scores and Times on Sepa- 
rate Traits : 
Significant Diverenees) in Mean 
Correlations between Scores on Three Trials. 
Deviations from Straight Line 
Relation between Coodrdinations in eenecnmenie ath 
Tracing Board and Tracing Path 


PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL KLEMENTS OF MOVEMENTS IN Ex- 
PERIMENT WITH TRACING PATH 

Mechanics of Movements 

Indications of Pressure 

Time Factors in Movements 

Freeline Movements 


Motor Co-oRDINATION, PHysicAL GROWTH, AND INTELLI- 
GENCE 

Motor Geaeaneen ate Broteal Gros 

Motor Coodrdination and Intelligence 

Motor Coordination according to Various MoRetres 


SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 


REFERENCES . 


PAGE 


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81 
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CHAPTER I 
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 


In almost every aspect of the young child’s life, demands are 
being made upon his ability to codrdinate his movements. In build- 
ing blocks, in stringing beads, in buttoning his coat, in lacing his 
shoes, in eating, in scribbling or writing, fine coordinations of the 
hand and arm are required. Observation of young children con- 
vinees one that there are differences in the ability of different 
children to make these adjustments. Just what the differences are, 
how to measure them, and how they are related to other phases of 
the child’s development are questions around which little experi- 
mental work has been centered. 

The present investigation represents an approach to the study 
of some phases of the development of motor codrdination in young 
children. The main specific objectives were (1) to make an an- 
alysis of the influence of direction of movement on control of the 
hand and arm in young children; (2) to analyze the muscular and 
psychological factors involved in such control; (3) to note age, sex, 
and individual differences; and (4) to determine the relative de- 
velopment and control of right and left hands. It was hoped 
ultimately to contribute to the problem of what constitutes motor 
control, of whether it is possible to establish a motor index, and of 
what place motor ability takes in the child’s developing abilities. 

Two experiments were planned with these objectives in mind. 
The apparatus for the first experiment is an adaptation of the 
Stoelting tracing board for use with very young children. The 
materials for the second experiment consist of sheets of paper on 
which are printed two lines with a space between of the same 
dimensions as the tracing board path; between these lines the 
child attempts to draw a line with a pencil. The experiments are 
described in detail later in the study. 


8 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


Motor coordination of the hand and arm was studied in each 
experiment by means of movement in eight directions: 


Direction 1 ( | ), down 

Direction 2 (—), left to right 
Direction 3 ( ft ), up 

Direction 4 (<), right to left 
Direction 5 (/ ), right to left down 
Direction 6 (\,), left to right down 
Direction 7 (7), left to right up 


Direction 8 (X\ ) 


For the last four movements the tracing board and the paper with 
the printed path were placed at an angle of 45 degrees to the base 
line of the table. 

The laboratory conditions were especially favorable for carrying 
on intensive investigations with young children. Children from 
two to five years of age were in regular daily attendance at the 
Preschool Laboratory and Junior Primary Group of the Iowa Child 
Welfare Research Station, and the six-year-old children were in 
attendance in the first grade of the University of Iowa Elementary 
School. All were present for from one and one-half to three hours 
each morning and could be taken to special examining rooms for 
individual work at any time during the morning. All of the chil- 
dren were acquainted with the examiner and with the conditions 
of the laboratories before the experiments were begun. 

For the main experiments, 136 children served as subjects; many 
of the children were subjects for repeated tests or special experi- 
ments. Their attitude toward the experiments expressed good 
cooperation, curiosity in regard to the working of the tracing 
board, and interest in good performance. 


right to left up 


CHAPTER II 


PUBLISHED EXPERIMENTS IN MOTOR 
CO-ORDINATION 


Motor coordination may be studied from a number of angles, de- 
pending upon whether the movements are voluntary or involuntary 
and upon the particular characteristic or characteristics of move- 
ment involved. When voluntary movements have been studied, 
the rate, accuracy, precision, force, and extent of movement have 
been the subjects of investigation. When involuntary movements 
have been studied, the chief concern has been the extent of move- 
ment. 

Since the force of movement involves structural growth to a 
greater degree and actual control to a less degree than the other 
characteristics do, it is not considered in the following discussion of 
the published findings relating to motor cdordination. 


EXPERIMENTS WITH YOUNG CHILDREN 


Experiments with Children Less Than Fie Years of Age 

Since 1923 a few significant and extensive experiments have been 
published on the growth of motor ecodrdination in children below 
school age. Prior to that date, preschool children were studied 
only as they were more or less incidentally included in groups with 
older children, when the concern was largely in differentiating older 
and younger children rather than in differentiating the younger 
children themselves. 

Gates and Taylor,*® in 1923, studied the acquisition of motor 
control in writing by forty-five preschool children. Two groups 
were taught to write, one by tracing letters and the other by copy- 
ing them. A series of five letters was first practiced for several 
days, then another series of five letters. The scores made by the 
eroup who traced were higher than those made by the group who 


1. Of the earlier experiments mention should be made of the reports of 
Kelly,57 who tested tapping rate and the extent of the least possible move- 
ment of the shoulder and finger in children as young as four years; of 
Wyczolkowska,112 who classified the spontaneous scribblings of some children 
(the number is not stated) from two to six years of age; and of the maze 
tests by Cunningham,?3 Shaw,%3 Porteus,8° and Young.115 


9 


10 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


wrote, but their ability to write letters at the end of the experiment 
was considerably less, that is, there was little transfer from the 
tracing situation to an actual writing situation. 

The first comprehensive investigation on motor codrdination in 
preschool children was that of Baldwin and Stecher,® who gave a 
large number of tests to 105 children from two to six years of age. 
They included several tests that involve motor control in combina- 
tion with form perception, as well as six tests of more strictly motor 
coordination. These six tests were the tracing path, Porteus maze, 
three hole, perforation (in which the child punches holes in a 
paper), walking board, and a test with seven Montessori dressing 
frames. Correlations of the tests with each other and of the motor 
tests with tests of mental ability were given, together with partial 
correlations when mental age was constant and when chrono- 
logical age was constant. The correlations among the motor 
tests that remained highest after the effects of mental age and 
chronological age had been eliminated were the tracing path with 
maze and three hole, maze with three hole, and three hole with per- 
foration. The raw correlations of the motor tests with Stanford- 
Binet and Detroit kindergarten tests were high, and were still 
positive when chronological age was held constant, the partial co- 
efficients being largest for the three hole and Porteus maze. Sex 
differences were slight. 

This report was followed closely by the works of Gesell®® and 
of Johnson.** Gesell tested 500 children from birth to six years of 
age, including for the very young infant such abilities as holding 
up the head, creeping, walking, and picking up an object. The 
tests at the older levels included writing movements, maze tests, a 
steadiness test, in which the child catches a cardboard fish by put- 
ting a stick through its eye, and drawing a picture. Gesell com- 
bined his tests into tentative norms for diagnostic purposes, but 
gave no discussion of the interrelations of the various tests, and 
his system of scoring makes comparisons with the results of others 
rather difficult. 

Johnson** used four motor tests with 260 children from three and 
one-half to thirteen and one-half years of age. These tests were 
tapping, steadiness, throwing a dart at a target, and maze tracing. 
Johnson found an increase in score with chronological age for each 
of the tests, the increase being least marked for steadiness. The 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 11 


maze coordination test was found to be a good measure at four, five, 
and six years of age. In tapping, girls excelled boys at every age 
except four years. No consistent sex differences were found for 
steadiness. Correlations between tapping and steadiness and the 
weight-height index were insignificant. 
Experiments with Children of Five and Six Years of Age 

Tests have been used more extensively with children of five and 
Six years than with younger children, undoubtedly because of the 
greater accessibility of children in the schools. Tapping, steadiness 
of the hands, arms or body, plunger, aiming, or target tests, maze 
tests, tracing board, walking board, writing movements, crossing 
out dots, string games, balancing coins, threading needles, tying 
string, interlacing slats, moving one hand in a circle while patting 
the head with the other, and thumb and finger opposition are tests 
that have been reported by various investigators for these ages.? 

In general, the results of these investigations showed a marked 
increase of motor control with age, a positive relationship with 
general mental ability, and an indication of superior performance 
by children from superior environment. Findings in regard to 
sex differences were contradictory. 


EXPERIMENTS WITH THE TRACING BOARD 


The tracing board was first invented and used by Bryan,** in 1892. 
His tracing board differed from the commercial instrument now 
used in that it utilized tin foil and that the two strips came to- 
gether at one end of the path. Little use has been made of the 
tracing board with children since the time of Bryan, and his com- 
plicated system of scoring has been discarded. 

The tracing board has been found to give a good index of handed- 
ness in children. Better results have been obtained with the positive 
instruction ‘‘Go down the middle of the groove’’ than with the 
negative instruction ‘‘Do not touch the sides.’’ For both children 
and adults the scores have been higher for movements that are 


2. The investigators who have used one or more of these tests are: Bee- 
ley,7 Berry and Porteus,’ Bickersteth,9 Bolton,12 Bryan,13 Burt,16 Carlisle,19 
Conway,2°, Foote,27 Freeland,28 Freeman,3° Gesell,39 Gilbert,4°,41 Hancock,47 
Hunt, Johnson, and Lincoln,5® Johnson,51,53 Kirkpatrick,58 Lamprey,&1! 
Mead,66 New York State Board of Charities,7° Ream,87 Rogers,9° Smedley,%5 
Starch,97 Tow,102 and Town.103 

3. The test has been included in a series of tests with children by Bolton,12 
Beeley,? and Town.103 With adults it has been used by Thompson,99 Lang- 
feld,62 Gates,35 Link,63 Perrin,75 and Rudisill.91 


12 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


toward the body than for movements that are away from it. No 
correlation has been found with other motor tests nor with tests 
of intelligence for adults. Sex findings have been contradictory. 


EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSES OF WRITING MOVEMENTS 


Analysis of the conditions affecting the muscular codrdinations 
required for handwriting and similar movements has been a sub- 
ject of some interest to experimenters. Reference has already been 
made to the work with preschool children by Gates and by Gesell. 

‘Seripture and Lyman,°*? in 1892, tested the ability of ten boys 
about thirteen years of age to draw lines in four different directions. 
Smaller amounts of deviation from a true straight line were found 
for the two vertical and horizontal lines than for the two angle move- 
ments. The most nearly accurate line was down and the least nearly 
accurate line was the angle movement from the left down. 

Speed and pressure changes in writing were investigated with 
children and adults by Freeman,?**13? and with adults by Binet 
and Courtier.*° Differences in speed changes and in pressure were 
found between good and poor writers and between children and 
adults. There was retardation in speed at turns, or changes in 
direction, the retardation being less for children than for adults. 
Good writers used a looser grasp of the pen than poor writers. 

Rhythm in handwriting was studied by Nutt’? and by West,?°° 
who found that children were low in rhythm. 

Speed in making vertical marks was reported by Kirkpatrick®® 
and the slope of letters by MacMillan.® 

Although the Porteus maze tests were intended by their author 
to measure mental alertness, prudence, forethought, and the power 
of sustained attention, they have been used by other investigators 
for determining motor control in young children, since success for 
the young child depends largely upon his ability to make the re- 
quired codrdinations. The movements involved are closely related 
to writing movements.4 


4. The investigators who have used maze tests with young children are 
Norsworthy,72,73 Mead,66 Cunningham,23 Shaw,93 Porteus,78,80,82 Berry and 
Porteus,$ Burt,16 Town,103 Morgenthau,68 Baldwin and Stecher,5 and Gesell.39 
A variation worked out in the Johns Hopkins University laboratories has 
been used with young children by Johnson.53 The maze as a motor learning 
problem with young children has been reported by Young.115 


CHAPTER III 
PROCEDURE OF EXPERIMENTS 


Two experiments were planned for the study of the young child’s 
ability to codrdinate his movements in eight fundamental directions. 
In the preliminary experiment the apparatus used was a modifica- 
tion of the Stoelting tracing board. Fifty-four children from three 
to six years of age acted as subjects. As an outgrowth of this pre- 
liminary experiment, a tracing path test was originated, which 
served as the basis for the main experiment and for the special 
experiments on the factors contributing to control of movement. 
In the experiments with the tracing path 186 children from three 
to six years of age were subjects. This number included the fifty- 
four children of the tracing board experiment. Many of the chil- 
dren served as subjects for repeated tests and in a series of special 
experiments. 


TRACING BOARD EXPERIMENT 
Materials 

The Stoelting tracing board, commonly used, consists of a wooden 
block upon which is set a glass path 25 em. long, 5 mm. wide at 
the top, and 1 mm. wide at the bottom, with brass strips and a 
raised rule on either side of the glass. The subject attempts to 
proceed down the glass path with a metal stylus without coming 
into contact with the brass strips. As soon as contact is made, there 
is a sound of an electric buzzer or bell, which is wired in circuit 
with the tracing board. The distance the subject has traversed 
when he makes the first contact is noted from the rule and is usually 
recorded as the score. 

It was believed that the noise of the buzzer might prove so at- 
tractive to little children when they are subjects that their delight 
in hearing the buzzer might invalidate the results. To safeguard 
against this, a tracing board was designed for this experiment in 
which the metal and glass parts are reversed from the Stoelting 
model so that the buzzer sounds continuously while the stylus is 
on the path. A paper rule was placed under the glass and all parts 
were sunk into the wooden background, so that a smooth surface 


13 


14 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


is presented, over which the stylus glides easily from brass to glass 
instead of being blocked by the rule, as in the Stoelting model. A 
short binding post that would interfere as little as possible with a 
free range of movement over the whole board was used. A special 
stylus with a point considerably shorter than the regulation point 
of the Stoelting stylus was made of aluminum in order to avoid 
scratching the brass and glass (Figure 1). 
Method of Conducting Experiment 

The child stood before a low table on which the apparatus rested. 
The height of the table was adjusted to the child’s height so that 
he naturally took a position with the elbow flexed at right angles 
and the forearm resting on the table. Eight positions of the tracing 
board for the different directions of movement were used. Four 
directions, three trials in each direction, constituted one day’s per- 
formance for a child. The sequence of directions was as follows: 


First day, directions 1 ( J ), 2 (—->), 

3 (ft ), 4 (<), right hand 
Second day, directions 1, 2, 8, and 4, left hand 
Third day, directions 5 (/),6 (\), 

Ta) 0) ONS rrigitenand 
Fourth day, directions 5, 6, 7, and 8, left hand 


This sequence was kept the same for all children. For a study 
of the influence of the difficulty of particular directions on scores, 
it is desirable to use different sequences of directions with equated 
eroups. However, development is so rapid at the ages concerned 
in this investigation that if further subdivision were attempted, 
the groups at any one stage of development would necessarily be 
too small for reliable conclusions. The possibility of changes in 
difficulties of directions with increasing age made it inadvisable to 
equate the groups irrespective of the range of ages. In view of 
these considerations and the fact that considerable labor was in- 
volved in the mere mechanics of keeping groups equated for in- 
dividual tests extending over a period of three years, it seemed best 
to maintain the same sequence of directions for all the children used 
in this investigation, and to interpret the data accordingly. 

The sequence of specific directions was decided upon from an 
a priort standpoint of possible difficulties, practice effects, and 
transfer of training. 

Care was taken to include only positive suggestion in the in- 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 15 


structions and in the supplementary remarks that were sometimes 
necessary, such as to finish the trial, to go slowly, or to assume a 
correct position, since Langfeld® found with his adult subjects with 
the tracing board test that much better results were obtained when 
the subject was instructed, ‘‘Go down the middle of the groove’’ 
than when he was told, ‘‘Do not touch the sides.’’ 

The instructions were: ‘‘See this pencil. I’m going to go right 
down this path [pointing] with the pencil. As long as I keep on 
the path the buzzer over here [indicating] will make a noise. Now 
watch me. [The experimenter demonstrated by going the entire 
leneth in fifteen seconds, saying at the same time, ‘‘I’m going to 
try to keep going down the path all the time.’’] Now you do it.”’ 

The child was then given the stylus in his right hand and shown 
how to hold it in the ordinary writing position, with the body erect 
and both feet firmly on the floor. For directions 2, 3, and 4, the 
instructions were, ‘‘Now we want to begin here and go this way.’’ 
When the child came the second day, the instructions were shortened 
to, ‘‘You remember this game, don’t you? Try to keep in the path 
all the time.’’ Generally after the first day’s performance no fur- 
ther instructions were needed as to the direction the movement was 
to take. When the child seemed uncertain, or hesitated, the ex: 
perimenter said, ‘‘Begin here and go down (or up) this way.’’ 

The child was not instructed to stop at the first contact, as is the 
usual method with the tracing board test, but finished the entire 
length of the path each time. This change was made in order to 
get a record of the entire movement, to avoid interruptions, which 
are irritating to the child, and to prevent confusion in the child’s 
mind as to what was desired. 

Method of Scoring 

All points of contact during the entire course of the movement 
and the amounts off path at each contact were recorded in half 
centimeters and the time for each trial was taken with a stop watch. 
Two methods of scoring the results were thus possible: The first 
score was the point of first contact or distance that the child had 
gone when he first went from the brass to the glass, and the second 
score was the percentage of the total path, 25 em., that the stylus 
was on the path. In calculating the percentage on the path each 
contact was counted as 0.5 em. off path. The average of three trials 
was used in each method. 


16 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


Response of Children 

Good interest and careful effort were maintamed throughout the 
course of the experiment, with, of course, certain daily fluctuations. 
The children did not seem to lose their interest in the test with the 
repeated performance; in fact, they often clamored for a chance - 

o ‘‘play’’ with the examiner when it was not their turn, and were 
much pleased at playing a familiar game. It was extremely difficult. 
to know at times whether the child’s interest and attention were 
lagging in a poor trial, or whether the difficulty lay in his inability 
to control the movement. Frequently these two factors seemed to 
go together, that is, if the child could do well, his interest was main- 
tained, while if he was deficient in control, he lost interest. 

It is, of course, difficult to secure from preschool children any 
systematic introspective observations on a test. If a leading ques- 
tion was asked, the child became reticent and no help was forth-. 
coming. When he felt that the experimenter was in sympathy with 
him, he might volunteer significant remarks on the test, which helped 
to give an insight into his problems and his understanding of the 
task. Some children, for example, indicated that they perceived a 
difference between the wider and narrower ends of the path by such 
remarks as, ‘‘It’s upside down,’’ when the apparatus was turned 
for the movement away from the body, ‘‘Kind of hard to get from 
down here up to here, that little part,’’ or ‘‘That end’s so little, I 
can’t hardly do it that good,’’ and by beginning at the wider end 
without indication from the experimenter as to where to begin. At 
times the experimenter waited to see where the child would begin 
if not directed; the child usually began properly, but was unable 
to give a reason for so doing. 

With some children the remark that as long as they kept the 
stylus on the path the buzzer would sound did not convey the idea 
that the sound would cease when the stylus went off the path. If 
they seemed puzzled or remarked on this fact, they were told to 
come back on the path and the buzzer would sound. This usually 
was sufficient explanation to relieve the situation. In only two in- 
stances was the buzzer a noticeable distraction, and in these two 
cases each child watched it during only one trial. 

If the child showed a tendency to pronounceedly accelerated speed 
with successive trials he was cautioned between trials to 20 slowly. 
In a few cases the caution to go slowly had no noticeable effect ; 


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MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 17 


in most cases, however, the result was a slowing down for the next 
following trial, but a speeding up again with the subsequent trial. 
The concept of slowness seems to be fairly well defined with these 
children, although a caution to go slowly is not kept in mind for 
more than one trial. 


TRACING PATH EXPERIMENT 
Materials 

Some deficiencies in the use of the tracing board experiment as 
a means for detailed analysis of motor control soon became appar- 
ent: (1) A permanent record of the course of movement was not 
obtained. Such a record was desired for a detailed analysis of the 
types of lines made and the factors influencing these different types 
of performance. (2) The recording of the contacts on the tracing 
board required such close attention and concentration on the part 
of the experimenter that little opportunity was left for observation 
of the numerous other reactions of the child. (3) It was practically 
impossible to obtain an accurate score for the child whose move- 
ments were very rapid or very irregular. 

The tracing path test was designed to meet these deficiencies and 
still be as comparable as possible to the tracing board test. Two 
lines were printed on a sheet of paper with the area between them 
the same as the area of the brass path of the tracing board (25 cm. 
long, 5 mm. wide at one end, and 1 mm. wide at the other end). 
The other conditions of the two experiments were as nearly identical 
as possible. A permanent and accurate record was obtained, and 
the scoring demanded of the experimenter while the experiment 
was in progress only the recording of the time for each trial. 
Method of Conducting Experiment 

The sheets of paper were fastened by thumb tacks to a piece of 
beaverboard the size of the table top. The sheets for the three trials 
in any one direction were fastened in a row along one edge of the 
board and when one direction was completed, the board was turned, 
bringing the sheets for the next direction into place. Each time, 
the child moved to a position directly in front of the sheet. The 
directions of movement and the order of giving them were the same 
as for the tracing board test. For those children in this study who 
were subjects for both the tracing board and the tracing path ex- 
periments the two tests were alternated, the tracing path following 
the tracing board, in this order: 


18 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


First day, directions 1, 2, 3, 4, tracing board 
Second day, directions 1, 2, 3, 4, tracing path 
Third day, directions 5, 6, 7, 8, tracing board 
Fourth day, directions 5, 6, 7, 8, tracing path 


The instructions to the child were: 

‘See this pencil. I want you to make a mark right down the 
path with the pencil. [Experimenter demonstrated how to follow 
the path by drawing an imaginary line from 0 to 25.] Keep right 
in the path all the time.”’ 

Method of Scoring 

Examination of the records showed that there were wide ranges 
of difference in the amount of excursion of the lines made by the 
children. The best method of scoring, therefore, seemed to be one 
that would take into account the total length of line and the relation 
of the part of the line within the path to the part that was out of 
the path. It was surprising to find that no accurate instrument 
was available for measuring the length of a crooked line. Chart- 
ometers on the market are graduated only in centimeters, which 
are too coarse units for the purpose, or they are graduated in the 
English system in eighths of an inch. Consequently various meth- 
ods were tried out. Fine wire or thread bent to conform to the 
contour of the line and later straightened to be measured was im- 
practicable because of the inaccuracy due to expansion and con- 
traction on bending and unbending and because of the laboriousness 
of the task of measuring. Freeman,** in his handwriting experi- 
ments, in which the areas were much smaller, used fine pointed 
dividers with a ruler, or millimeter paper bent to conform to the 
line, but these methods also were laborious and impracticable for 
our purposes. 

An aluminum wheel, 20 em. in cireumference and graduated in 
millimeters, with the edge milled to avoid slipping upon the paper, 
was finally constructed. For measuring the length of a line within 
the path the wheel was set down at zero and moved along the line 
until an intersection of the printed line was reached. The reading 
was noted, the wheel lifted and set down again at the point where 
the pencil line again intersected the printed line, and the measuring 
continued to the next intersection. This method gave the cumula- 
tive length of the line within the path and did away with the neces- 
sity for computation. Similarly, the length of the line outside the 
path was found. 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN = 19 


Three checks were made to determine the accuracy of the meas- 
urements: (1) The total length of the line was measured and 
checked against the amount in path plus the amount off path. 
(2) Straight lines were measured and the measurements found to 
be exact. (3) One typical record was measured twenty times. The 
mean deviation was found to be 0.24 mm. and the range 2 mm., with 
fifteen of the twenty trials measuring exactly the same. One of the 
most difficult records to measure was then selected and measured 
five times, and the error was found to be not greater than for the 
typical record. A check was also made by remeasuring some records 
independently after several days’ interval and comparing the re- 
sults with those originally obtained. In no case was the difference 
greater than 2 mm. 

The score for this test was obtained by dividing the length of 
the line in the path by the total length of the line.5 


Response of Children 

In an attempt to get the child’s judgment on his product and his 
attitude toward his accomplishment, the experimenter asked, 
‘Which of these do you think is best?’’ indicating the last three 
trials, and when the choice was made, ‘‘Why do you think that is 
best??? The three and four-year-old children selected a trial, but 
could seldom give any plausible reason for the selection, saying 
that they did not know or ‘‘ Both are best,’’ ‘‘They’re all best,’’ or 
“Because I writed them nice.’’ The five-year-old children, although 
their selections did not always agree with the experimenter’s judg- 


5. When detailed analysis of the lines is not desired, a quicker method of 
scoring that will give practically the same percentage within the path may be 
used. The score is obtained by measuring with a rule the number of millimeters 
of the guideline opposite the parts of the child’s line that are within the path 
and dividing this number by the number of millimeters of the guideline oppo- 
site the child’s total line. This rule method was tried out and the scores 
checked against the scores by the wheel method for 359 cases (average of three 
trials each). In 61.8 per cent of the cases the results showed no difference in 
scores by the two methods; in 31.2 per cent there was a difference of 1 point; 
and in only one case was there a difference as large as 4 points: 


Difference in Number of 
scores, in points cases 
0 222 (61.8 per cent of 359) 
1 112 (31.2 per cent of 359) 
2 14 ( 3.9 per cent of 359) 
3 10 ( 2.8 per cent of 359) 
4 1 ( 0.3 per cent of 359) 


— 


359 


20 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


ment, gave good reasons for their choice, such as, ‘‘ Because it’s the 
straightest line,’’ ‘‘Because it’s more straighter,’’ ‘‘Doesn’t have 
as many bumps in it,’’ and ‘‘ Because I went out of the path in the 
others. See.’’ One child gave as his reason, ‘‘Because it’s the 
last.’? When asked if the last is always the best, he replied, ‘‘ Yes, 
because I have practiced on the others.’’ It will be noted that al- 
though the instructions merely said to keep within the path, many 
children interpreted them to mean that they were to make as straight 
a line as possible. 


CHAPTER IV 


QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF EXPERIMENTAL 
RESULTS 


The results of the tracing board and tracing path tests on the 
control of hand and arm movements were studied with reference 
to reliability and to the influence on scores of age, sex, hand used, 
practice, and direction of movement. The relation of scores made 
on the two tests was also considered. 


RELIABILITY OF TESTS 


The reliability of the tracing board test was found by correlating 
the scores on one half of the directions against the scores on the 
other half. The groupings used were directions 1 ()), 4 (<), 
6 (\,), and 7 ( 7) against directions 2 (—>),3(7T),5 (7), 
and 8 (\). These groupings were arrived at from two stand- 
points, the best pairing according to the order in which the tests 
were given, and the best pairing according to naturalness of move- 
ment from an adult a priori standpoint. The coefficient of correla- 
tion obtained by the product-moment method with these groupings 
for the fifty-four children from three to six years of age was 
82 + .04. When the Spearman-Brown prophecy formula® was 
applied for two tests, the reliability coefficient for the whole test 
became .90 + .O1. 

The reliability of the tracing path test was computed by using 
the groupings of directions used with the tracing board. The cor- 
relation obtained by the product-moment method for ninety-four 
children from three to six years of age was .969 + .004. When the 
Spearman-Brown prophecy formula was applied, the reliability co- 
efficient for the whole test became .984 + .002. This correlation was, 
of course, influenced by the range of ages included. In order to de- 
termine what the reliability would be within an age group, correla- 
tions were worked out by the rank method for three age groups and 


Nr 
COR 2 ee, are ee 
e soy aN pret BP 
McCall, W. A. How to Experiment in Education. New York: Macmillan, 
1923. Pp. 281 (p. 111). 


21 


22 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


the values transmuted into r. The reliability coefficients thus ob- 
tained were: 


r Prophecy r 
At three years 785 = .05 .876 
At five years 908 += .02 951 
At six years 875 + .04 933 


The correlations between the various directions are discussed in 
connection with the relative difficulties of the eight directions. 


AGE DIFFERENCES 


Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4 give the points of first contact on the tracing 
board for each subject (average of the three trials), with the average 
and standard deviation for each direction separately for right and 
left hand performances. The average point of first contact for the 
eight directions for each child is also given. 

It will be noted from these tables that while the differences in 
averages are small, each age group ranks higher than the preceding 
age group for each direction, except that the six-year group does 
not gain over the five-year group. Whether or not these differences 
with age are significant may be determined by finding the probable 
error of the difference of the means.7 

It is found that the difference between the means for the children 
of three and five years is more than three times the probable error 
of the difference, and therefore significant, for each direction with 
the right hand, but that with the left hand the difference is not 
significant for any direction of movement except direction 7 ( / ). 
The actual differences between the means and the probable errors 
of the differences for these two groups are as follows: 


Right hand Left hand 
Actual P.E. of Actual P.E. of 

Direction difference difference difference difference 
Gls 4.3 93 1.6 .79 
Lea (pam 5.9 .76 Pid .48 
Fe “y ) 4.0 95 +5 87 
He Ce) 4.7 46 1.1 .78 
a ¢ Pie 4.3 1.08 0.2 92 
6 ( ~ ) 5.0 1.06 1.5 .90 
7 (J) 5.0 1.43 ay § W138 
8 ( RK ) 6.5 1.74 0.2 .76 


(Ct Oe EVA aoe: +P Ey 
1 


McCall, W. A. How to Experiment in Education. New York: Macmillan, 
1923. Pp. 281 (p. 151). 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN ~— 23 


For the left hand, the scores for the four age groups are so close 
that the actual difference in the average of the eight directions be- 
tween the three-year group and the six-year group is less than the 
difference between the three-year and four-year groups for the 
right hand. The left hand scores are at a lower level throughout 
than the right hand scores, the scores for all groups with the left 
hand approximating the scores for the three-year group with the 
right hand. This means that the disparity between right and left 
hand became increasingly greater with the increase in age. 

The correlation of the average point of first contact on all direc- 
tions with age was .88 + .03 for boys and .53 + .09 for girls from 
three to six years of age, indicating that the older child tended to 
go a longer distance than the younger child before making a contact. 

Comparison of the averages with the results of Town? shows 
that the fifteen four-year-old children in this study are equal to 
and probably ahead of Town’s forty-two five and six-year-old chil- 
dren. Her average point of first contact for direction 2 (— ) with 
the right hand was 6.47, P.E. 2.48. Her records show a number 
of zero scores, which did not oceur with the children in this ex- 
periment. The two tracing boards and methods of experiment were 
somewhat different, however, and for that reason the scores are not 
directly comparable. 

The distance the child kept on the path, expressed in terms of 
percentage of the total length of the path, was used as another 
method of scoring the results. This method does not penalize un- 
duly the child who goes off path early in his course but keeps on 
the path the rest of the way, as does the method of recording only 
the point of first contact. Tables 5, 6, 7, and 8 give these percentages 
for the individual children, with averages and standard deviations 
for the age groups. 

In general, the results show the same tendencies as those for the 
point of first contact, that is, an increasingly higher score with age, 
and an increasingly greater difference between right and left hands. 

The individual scores on the tracing path test with the right hand 
are given in Tables 9 to 15, with the averages and standard de- 
viations for each half-year group. It will be scen from these tables 
that the scores of the six-year group are nearly double those of the 
three-year group, and that there is a general increase in scores from 
any half year to the next. This increase is greatest between three 


24 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 








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i 


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TABLE 2 
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MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 


TABLE 4 
Individual Scores (Average of Three Trials) on Point of First Contact on the Tracing Board by Children of Six Years 


Left hand 


Right hand 

















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32 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


TABLE 9 
Individual Scores (Average of Three Trials) on the Tracing Path with the 
Right Hand by Children of Three Years 








Direction of movement 


mM 
Child: (ee ee ee eee 
3 E eet ee Cea 6 
ie AMC mit ees WN 
M1 SGP a7 ors Midd LO AG) 40 Onde eds ae Oe 
M2 th ae lee ec eeeh 43.3 
M3 Sai0 oe 37 831 684 k8F 150 LBS eos ade oe 
r4 SHO 1-66) 23 4S eb n88 1) He SS eevee 70 Ree 
M4 oT | 39 7-93. 407) 46 35.2 
F5 SAL el 965.25 (6385047 ed Oe OT Sot ese 
M5 941 7 | BaV O58 R91 tod BT ont ben od al eo 
F6 041 155. 45 55.38 69 S6ur45 961 | -BgO 
M6 911-0 1°47 37 36) 39-0146 Reena ebOL 
F7 30 |{87 00) 40 2yoS3 2087 Se MME BGM E40 Te 47eNl eae 
M7 aca’ dy 58 Re 81 72.3 
Msg 37 1 58 49 28656.58.) 87) ae es0 so eae 
M9 sg et Ogmmegs ahd CetaT 85.8 
F8 3-4 BL 4B. O7 BGS 70 0 Se a6 eae ee 
F9 oyu ee Pio ty i eT ye ee 
M10 3\'9 4.43! 49 Unay: 46°98 87 57a oe mene 
Mil gg. |-43 939149 bb 54 B70 eo 
F10 3-9 


515 49 SF 33 ibs 46s eB bie bs. 4s 45.4 


Average 50.4 42.7 41.9 45.0 50.6 44.9 48.1 47.1 
S.D. 16.9 15.4 144 14.6 11.3 11.3 14.6 12.8 


and four years of age and least between five and one-half and six 
years, where the scores near perfection. The variability of the 
scores, aS measured by the standard deviations, is greater for the 
younger children than for the older children. 

Only the superior children less than two years and nine months 
of age in. this group understood the task sufficiently well to make 
scores. There were three such girls, aged two years and three 
months, two years and seven months, and two years and seven 
months, respectively, who succeeded; the third one of these had 
previously failed at two years and three months. Four other chil- 
dren less than three years of age failed to make scores. Their ages 
were as follows: 


Boy, 2 years, 3 months: failure again at 2 years, 6 months 
Boy, 2 years, 6 months: no second attempt 

Girl, 2 years, 7 months: success at 2 years, 11 months 
Boy, 2 years, 10 months: suecess at 3 years, 2 months 


The coefficient of correlation between age and the average score 
on the eight directions on the tracing path for the entire group of 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN ~ 33 


TABLE 10 
Individual Seores (Average of Three Trials) on the Tracing Path with the 
Right Hand by Children of Three and One-Half Years 





ee Direction of movement 
Chil K = A 
at a & ‘lee en tee 0 grea, ee Semeur a 
Mie et ee ENE OK 

M12 3- 3 40 20 45 57 54 45 a7 5S 46.4 
Fil 3- 3 47 70 fies 54 AT 61 55 46 56.6 
F12 3- 3 60 47 31 50 a 61 54 65 52.6 
F13 3- 3 52 42 OL 58 55 54 5 59 Doo 
M13 3- 4 69 73 62 50 63.5 
M14 3- 4 61 46 oF 22 41 24 27 40 ot. 
F14 3- 4 60: 52 46 59 54.3 
M15 3-— 5 76 69 70 63 Au yas 47 59 65.8 
M16 3- 5 36 26 31 40 33.2 
F15 3- 5 30 68 oo 44 39 17 72 48 51.6 
M17 3- 5 49 41 ot 56 69 69 AT 72 55.0 
F16 3- 5 65 59 36 50 56 56 hi fee 58.5 
F17 3-— 5 80 62 78 69 70 59 61 73 69.0 
M18 3- 6 80 49 61 67 64.3 
M19 3-— 6 42 51 48 ay! 49.5 
M20 3- 6 49 38 he 56 67 76 72 79 64.3 
F18 3-— 6 89 78 81 65 43 61 oF 43 62.1 
F19 3- 7 61 62 66 42 32 40 Do 42 50.0 
M21 3-— 7 42 27 27 21 54 60 47 63 42.6 
F20 3-— 7 74. 76 70 61 62 62 48 83 67.0 
F21 3— 7 70 48 52 31 85 61 63 56 58.3 
F22 3-— 7 84 90 ta 87 83.5 
F24 3- 8 75 ti 43 44 72 46 40 65 52.8 
F23 3- 8 65 38 36 35 43.5 
F25 3- 8 54 46 65 60 83 51 58 59 59.5 
M23 3- 8 86 80 io 49 67.5 
M22 3- 8 83 90 95 79 83 89 69 80 83.5 
M24 3- 8 69 53 O1 57 80 62 fa 63 64.3 
Average 02.4 7°54;9: "55.17 503.0 “60.8 59.3 55.2... 61.2 

S.D. 1GAe (Sidon 1 7. 7ecld 7 1 15.0» 1842 


children was .81 -+ .03 for boys and .82 + .03 for girls, indicating 
that the older child made a higher score than the younger child. 


SEX DIFFERENCES 


For determining any possible differences in scores on the tracing 
board that might be due to sex, the averages of the scores with the 
right hand and the standard deviations were calculated for all boys 
and for all girls for each direction of movement, since the number 
of children was too small for subdivision of the age groups by sexes. 
Table 16, which gives these average scores and standard deviations, 
shows that by either method of scoring there are no differences in 
scores that can be attributed to sex. Neither does it appear from 


o4 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


TABLE 11 
Individual Scores (Average of Three Trials) on the Tracing Path with the 
Right Hand by Children of Four Years 











Age AY 
Direction of movement 

Child 2 

mn aE MOLE els Sse eRe in Tks ROL) 

: a E Lee gy a Re kT ee 

6 Ue Jue 4 Wickes aed Wht an IA at 
F26 3-80 B5 ASO G7. ord 76.3 
M25 589 G1 1870 Pe7d eos ae ob va70. 71 BE 69.4 
M26 5-30 55. A Five we De CBSe 74 Bo Ba 55.8 
F27 Sau 4h NAS 1 RATE BOS il COG) et GO ae 53.4 
F28 3-10 GA. OD aNT Aime) . 85.8 
M27 3-10 foe GA SEO re eto 61.5 
F29 3-10 Soe Rds) 6S 6G 69.0 
M28 4— 0 85 63 74 62 71.0 
M29 4 0 78 78° AT N51 63.5 
F30 ria | TO) STO GOO. PSl eT alae es cee ey 80.0 
F31 4-1 O4n e011 BOs ess 91.3 
M30 4 2 86 82 95 68 82.8 
Average 77.0 71.6 70.1 62.7 66.8 75.5 66.8 65.0 
S.D. 145 217.8" 180014 Suey ol lie ee 


TABLE 12 
Individual Seores (Average of Three Trials) on the Tracing Path with the 
Right Hand by Children of Four and One-Half Years 








Age : ¢ 
Direction of movement 

Child a: A 

a 

; s E Ree CMe? Me one eee ee Tees 

Ke eo el Pie ee 2 ey aN te Ve 
F32 Aone Sa Ta Pe OT RTE OO errs TA ae 81.8 
F33 Whe OF 79.) 77> O76 80.5 
F34 4— 3 64.5) 38.00 GS a ebOty Ly] abo OA meee 57.4 
M31 ya 1 Wes Ours OS aes 90.5 
F35 AarA 87. 884 -B6™ (OR vO4ieo 7 Biers aeemR 85.9 
F36 4— 5 89. 00) a7 Gia Od ses ad) mee 86.8 
M32 4— 6 95 0 189°. 487 Ea7S ESS WOT aunts. bez 81.4 
M33 4— 6 RO. Soa TT AO OB er G oer a eerie 76.0 
F37 4— 7 03 (5 RR re iAe AeA 89.8 
F38 4— 7 Rei 84 gerd | Ch eT) re BO eee 75.6 
F39 a S00) erg Grey gs eda 61 GS RT 67.9 
M34 4-7 89 86 75 82 83.0 
F40 ye 681. 858 N78) 68 697 88 1ly Be eS 66.6 
F41 4or8 94.- 69. 69 .66 97. 89 88 +84 82.0 
F42 4— 8 G4 7c tRO Uv eo | O86 BT Soe ee 85.2 
Average 85.0 76.6 79.7 76.7 78.0 75.5 75.2 77.5 


8.D. 9.1 184° 88,110.10 -17.4° 710.5" 10-6 lit 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 35 


TABLE 13 
Individual Scores (Average of Three Trials) on the Tracing Path with the 
Right Hand by Children of Five Years 





Age ee 
2 Direction of movement 

Child ae A 

3 E oe eh ae eee ay ae Be 

z Gram ee NN. 
F44 4259 Sie 7 Se 67 seed On 08 fe OT 2 0G 86.1 
F43 4— 9 SA terse enya ve C7 83.0 
F45 4-10 Sener ero ren Gls 74k SoG GO 70.8 
M35 4-11 57/560. 5500-67 59.8 
M36 4-11 Of OSH EO TAme SON Ur Oe Th eR lee (90 90.9 
M37 4-11 Si Slats Rie Oo 79.8 
F46 4-11 19- ISACI SS ETO ST TG. Se 80.6 
F47 4-11 O10 84 5 *89 B00 86.8 
F48 5- 0 O4 Me 7 ester O Ss: 1) 80 Fh tO4s 5h 860) 85 89.0 
M38 5- 0 Rama cess ees Oe OL ust Ol areal 687 87.4 
M39 5- 0 ST aG> ee OTe 6S 49.8 
F49 mea | SO Oli Ol meee Ru aeO | ome Oi) 904.4. eee 90.1 
M40 Raa] OR e593) WlO4 ae 00 93.8 
F50 se | 69780740199 410589 96.0 
M41 Bae oD SSeey Sar Romesh wee Of 1 Soe 58H ay 079 85.0 
M42 5- 2 OSS eR ho ean One OFT) eeO4e eS 86.4 
F51 5- 2 Verse RT Mee Ton MOTT ee St yO tht to 80.4 





Average 83.9 80.6 80.1 81.3 85.8 87.7 84.8 84.6 
sake Ly Oat Opel 2.Or L032) 8.270 6,950 8.65.57,0 


the standard deviations that one sex is more variable than the other 
in scores. 

For determining sex differences in scores on the tracing path, 
the average score for each direction of movement for each sex was 
computed for each age. Standard deviations were calculated for 
the three and five-year age groups, since the largest number of 
cases fell in these two groups. Table 17 shows that there is no con- 
sistent tendency for one sex to be ahead of the other. The boys 
are ahead on some directions and the girls are ahead on others. 
Since year groupings are rather coarse for such young children, 
however, it seemed wise to investigate the array of ages within a 
eroup. The average age for the four-year-old girls was found to 
be 2.2 months greater than for the four-year-old boys, the average 
age for the six-year-old girls to be 2.6 months greater than for 
the six-year-old boys, and the average ages for the three and five- 
year-old boys and girls to be the same. Two months might mean 
sufficient growth at these early ages to influence the scores, and the 
two sexes were therefore divided into groups in which the ages were 


36 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


TABLE 14 
Individual Scores (Average of Three Trials) on the Tracing Path with the 
Right Hand by Children of Five and One-Half Years 








sens Direction of movement 
mM 
at 
j wo Average 

eee S § fsa Meese es IG Ties _ 

Pe OOS a ae Rtas gh sete 
M44 5-— 3 85 92 a1 eGo 84 83 93 83 81.6 
F52 5- 3 97 92 90 93 89 90 94 85 91.3 
M43 5- 3 92 81 80 82 83.8 
F53 5-38 99 91 96 91 91 86 90 £96 92.5 
M46 5— 4 80 (Aybar ots T3 85 86 88 81 81.6 
F54 5- 4 99 99 95 97.7 
F55 5— 5 94 93 95 96 96 90 95 £96 94.4 
M47 5— 5 96 87 90 80 94 90 90 93 90.0 
F56 5— 5 84 83 ri Bane 84 86 79 78 81.0 
F57 5— 5 96 99 99 99 87) 283) 8S 85 91.4 
F58 5- 5 89 99 97 + 88 96 93 96 94 94.0 
F59 5—- 5 82 68 82 56 72.0 
M45 5— 6 98 98 93 90 93 92 90 93 93.4 
M48 5- 6 68 Stith noo Ry i Pie tate At 88 85.4 
M49 5—- 6 91 80 84 86 85.3 
M50 5— 6 94 93 92 93 98 93 90 95 93.5 
M51 5— 6 91 83 95 86 88.8 
M52 5—- 6 pte Us valeed) 87 87-» 596. 2296296 91.6 
M53 5— 6 94+ ‘93.1007 (92 88 87 91 86 91.4 
M54 5-— 7 81 67 75 SOs TTT it ae 79 88 79.5 
F60 5-— 7 81 80 95 84 91 90 97 91 88.6 
F61 5-— 7 100 92 89 87 94 91 84 91 91.0 
F62 5-— 7 


96502 Dis O04 ve Slee Of S09 hae Oe 93.9 


Average 90.0 87.9 89.6 84.1 89.3 89.4 90.5 89.6 
S.D. S20 ROL FB SOO G2. a Seo. eae 


TABLE 15 
Individual Scores (Average of Three Trials) on the Tracing Path with the 
Right Hand by Children of Six Years 





Age : : 
Direction of movement 
Child 2 A 
i H Se ee a ree erage 
sé 1). 2D, Pe a wee ee eee eee ae 
& Ue ee 
F63 5- 9 73 76 tL 78 87 73 87 73 78.0 
F64 5- 9 96 86 91 93 94 94 99 96 93.6 
F65 5-10 72 74 72 75 73.3 
M55 5-11 86 83 59 85 91 92 95 87 84.8 
M56 5-11 99 87 96 84 92 91 84 97 91.3 
M57 5-11 100 100 100 99 99 100 99 99 99.5 
M58 6-1 94 96 83 90 87 94 88 91 90.4 
F66 6— 1 98 97 96 92 99 99 97 96 96.8 
F67 6— 2 100 99 99 97 98 96 95 98 97.8 
Average 90.9 88.7 85.9 88.1 93.4 92.4 93.0 92.1 


8.D. 10.60 °°9.8- 18.40 27.8) SA Te eat 


37 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 





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IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


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MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 39 


matched to the exact month. There were forty-six boys and girls 
whose birthdays were identical to the month who had seores on all 
eight directions. The average score for these boys was 65.8, for the 
girls 65.0. The averages, which are given in Table 17, are almost 
identical for the boys and girls for each direction. It would seem, 
therefore, that in the scores on this test there are no real sex differ- 
ences. 


PERFORMANCE WITH RIGHT AND LEFT HANDS 


When the right hand was used, the child did not usually have 
difficulty in attaining a fairly good grasp of the stylus or pencil 
m an ordinary writing position. When the left hand was used, 
this adjustment appeared to be more difficult. In the experiments 
with the left hand the stylus or pencil was given to the child so 
that he took it naturally in the left hand, but he almost invariably 
transferred it to his right hand. It became necessary in many cases 
to readjust it to the left hand before every trial. Verbal protest 
at the use of this hand was rare in the younger children, but there 
were sometimes movements of confusion and consequent self-con- 
sciousness. The older children often voiced their objections, re- 
marking that it was ‘‘hard’’ or giving some reason why the right 
hand was preferable. If the performance did not progress satis- 
factorily to the child, he sometimes shifted the stylus or pencil dur- 
ing a trial or stopped to readjust it with his right hand. 

Mention has already been made of the lower level of scores on 
the tracing board with the left hand and of the increasing difference 
between scores with right and left hands as age increases. There 
are only a few cases in which a child’s left hand average exceeds 
his right hand average, although cases in which the left hand score 
exceeds the right hand for a particular direction are not rare. Hx- 
cept for two directions, direction 5 ( “ ) and 8 ( \_ ), for the three- 
year group, there is no direction of movement for any age on which 
the group average on point of first contact (Table 5) for the left 
hand exceeds that. for the right hand, and even in these two instances 
the differences can not be considered s‘gnificant. Presumably, any 
advantages due to transfer of training or to practice should have 
gone to the left hand scores, since the tests with the left hand came 
later than those with the right hand. 

The correlation between the combined average of the points of 
first contact for all eight directions with the right hand and this 


40 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


combined average with the left hand was .52 + .08, when the entire 
sroup of children was included. When age was held constant by 
means of partial correlation, the correlation between right and left 
hand scores lost its significance, dropping to .15 + .10. Apparently 
there was no relationship between performance with the right and 
left hands, apart from that influenced by age. The number of 
children at any one age was too small for reliable correlation within 
an age group. 

Forty-one children were given the tracing path test with the left 
hand as well as with the right hand. For purposes of comparison 
Tables 18 to 21 give their individual scores, by age groups, with 
the left hand and with the right hand. There are lower average 
scores for the left hand than for the right hand for the various 
directions of movement, the difference between the two hands being 
less at three years than at any other age. | 

When individual children’s records on the tracing path for the 
two hands are compared, it is found that the scores for the left 
hand exceed those for the right hand for some specific directions, 
although which the directions are depends upon individual differ- 
ences in the children. In this group of forty-one children there 
are more cases on direction 2 (— ) in which the score with the left 
hand exceeds the score with the right hand than on any other 
direction. When the directions are ranked for the age groups, 
directions 2 (—) and 7 (7) rank markedly higher than any 
other direction for the left hand. It is probably justifiable to con- 
clude then that directions 2 (—) and 7 (7) were the easiest 
movements for these children to make with the left hand. It is not 
justifiable, however, to conclude that direction 4 (<) with the 
right hand is comparable with direction 2 ( — ) with the left hand. 
In fact, judging from the rankings for the age groups, direction 4 
seems to be a particularly difficult one for either hand. 

The correlation between the average score on the tracing path 
with the right hand and the average score with the left hand was 
“74 + .05, when the group included children from three to six years 
of age. When age was held constant by the partial correlation 
method, the correlation was .40 + .09, indicating that a child who 
ranked high in score with his right hand tended also to rank high 
in score with his left hand. The correlation between age and the 
average score with the left hand was .69 + .06 for children from 


41 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 









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MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN = 45 


three to six years of age. This correlation is lower than the cor- 
relations between age and scores on the right hand (.81 for boys 
and .82 for girls). This probably means that the tendency for 
scores to increase with age was not so marked when the left hand 
was used as when the right hand was used. 


PRACTICE EFFECTS AND TRANSFER OF TRAINING 


In order to determine whether a child who had had previous ex- 
perience with the tracing board benefited sufficiently from this 
experience to raise his score on a second test, the scores on points 
of first contact of the fifteen children who had had the test a 
second time were examined. Since the intervals between tests were 
irregular, the scores on the repeated test were averaged according 
to the age of the child and these averages checked against the 
averages on the first test for all children for whom there were 
scores at these ages. In Table 22 it will be seen that at each age 
the averages for the children on the repeated test are ahead of these 
tentative norms. Two explanations for this advantage might be 
offered: practice effects may have accrued from having had the 
test before and the group that was given the test a second time may 
have been a selected group and could be expected to make superior 
scores. If the group was a superior one, then the scores made on 
the first test could be expected to be above the average scores for 
all children at the same ages. That this was not the case may be 
seen from Table 22, where the scores for these fifteen children on 
the first test show no significant deviations in a positive direction 
from the tentative norms. It therefore appears that previous ex- 
perience with the test tended to increase the scores for these children 
when the test was repeated. These results are not in accordance 
with those of Bryan,® who, as subject, made 800 trials over a period 
of three weeks with his tracing board and did not find an observable 
improvement with practice. 

The question as to whether practice in one direction of move- 
ment carries over to another direction is difficult to answer from 
these data, since the matter is complicated by the relative difficulties 
of the directions. However, if we could assume that all directions 
were of equal difficulty, and that other conditions were equal, we 
should expect the scores on the last direction to be higher on ac- 
count of practice than those for the first direction on a particular 


IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


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MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 47 


day, and the scores on the second day could also be expected to be 
higher than those on the first day. Neither of these results is found. 
The last direction on a particular day does not give the highest 
score, and the second day’s scores are not higher than the first day’s 
scores. How much experience with the right hand on a particular 


TABLE 23 


Average Scores on the Tracing Path by Entire Group on First Test and by 
Repeated Test Group on First, Second, and Third Tests 





hy 
° Direction of movement 
G 26 en 
roup re © 6 
and strsaver 2 3 4 5 6 7 Bap ees 
test & a LS 
Se idee ac api oes ait “x pth os Pay Aen 


Entire group— 
Ist test 33 | 52.4 47.6 45.8 47.9 53.2 51.0 51.4 51.0 |50.0 


Repeated test 
group—lIst test | 16 | 51.3 44.8 47.4 51.6 52.0 50.8 50.0 49.0 |49.6 


Repeated test 
group—2d test » | 64.0 56.6 58.8 59.4 61.0 51.0 55.0 56.0 [57.7 


4 years 
Entire group— 
Ist test oo jot O10 69.1 59.9" 69:8" 63:1" 63.1 67.0 4166.2 


Repeated test | 
group—lIst test | 15 | 71.0 65.9 73.6 63.8 66.8 71.8 65.4 70.0 


Repeated test 
group—2d test | 16 | 74.7 70.8 71.7 68.1 83.0 73.4 75.2 80.3 |74.6 


5 years 








Entire group— | 
Ist test 39 | 88.0 83.7 82.8 80.4 84.6 84.1 83.9 84.0 | 83.9 


Repeated test 
sroup—ist test | 15 | 83.1 78.3. 77.7 75.0 81.2 80.6 78.1 79.0 |79.1 


Repeated test 
group—2d test | 21 | 89.2 82.5 81.1 81.7 91.5 91.0 88.5 88.8 |86.8 


Repeated test 
group—3d test T (90.7) 66,1.- 31.8 81.2°,92.3- 00.3! 83.3.5°85.8 | 86.4 


6 years 








Entire group— 

Ist test 20 | 89.8 88.2 89.4 86.9 90.1 91.4 92.3 90.8 | 89.9 
Repeated test 

group—-Ist test | 3 | 77.0 80.3 83.7 82.7 77.0 86.0. 95.0 88.0 |83.7 
Repeated test 

group—2d test @ | 93.0 90.7 91,8" °90;89498.6" 94.4. 96.0 948) 1.93.8 


Repeated test 
group—3d test 3 | 97.7 96.0 94.7 92.0 98.0 95.3 91.3 93.7 |94.8 


48 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


direction may transfer to the left hand on that same direction is 
not apparent from these data. 

Forty-nine children were given the tracing path test twice; ten 
of these were given the test a third time. Table 23 gives the aver- 
age scores by ages for these children on these repeated tests, with 
their scores on their first tests compared with the average scores 
of all the children on the first tests used as tentative norms. It 
will be seen that the averages for the second test group are ahead 
of the norms for practically every direction of movement at every 
age. The combined average for all directions is higher at each age 
for the second test group than for the norm group. That this ad- 
vantage was not due to the selection of the group for the repeated 
tests may be seen by comparing the scores of this group on their 
first test with the tentative norms. Their averages for the first test 
fall slightly below the norm averages for their ages. It would seem 
then that the children made higher scores on their second test be- 
cause of previous experience with the test. 

Data that are at hand for ten children who were given the test 
a third time seem to indicate that while the advantage from the 
second test was maintained, there was no appreciable gain, from the 
second to the third test. However, the number of third tests is too 
small to consider the findings more than an indication of tendency. 

That the scores on the tracing path do not show an increase that 
can be attributed to order of testing of the directions is evidenced 
by the rankings for the various age groups. Although the actual 
rankings vary at the various ages, the general tendencies are similar. 
At no age does the eighth direction ( \_ ) tested rank first in score. 
The fourth direction tested (< ), which was the last of the series 
on the first day, ranks lower than any other direction, and the first 
direction (J ) ranks highest of all eight. If there was transfer of 
training from one movement to the next, it is not evident from 
these data. 


RELATIVE DIFFICULTIES OF THE EIGHT DIRECTIONS 
Tracing Board Experiment 
No one direction of movement on the tracing board stands out 
as consistently easier or more difficult than the others for all age 
groups, when actual differences alone are considered, irrespective 
of the significance of these differences. The rankings for order of 
difficulty within an age group change according to whether the 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 49 


score used is the point of first contact or the percentage within 
the path. When the formula for determining the standard error 
of differences between the means when correlated measures are in- 
volved8 is applied, and a correlation of .40 is assumed when the 
actual correlations have not been computed, it is found that there 
is no combination of two directions in which there are significant 
differences between the means in at least three of the four age 
eroups by both methods of scoring (point of first contact and per- 
centage within the path), although there are occasional significant 
differences within an age group. 

The correlations between the points of first contact on different 
directions of movement were worked out for five combinations of 
directions for the fifty-four children: 


r PE, 

Direction 1 ( J ) with 3 ( * ) 16e 09 
Direction 2 (=>) with 4 ( « ) 45 + .08 
Direction 5 ( A ) with 7 ( BA ) 71-2 U6 
Direction 6 ( a ) with 8 ( nS ) Oe -te.09 
+ .09 


Direction 2 (—>) with 7 ( JA ) 46 


All of these correlations are significant, except for the combina- 
tion of directions 1 ( | ) and 3 ( 7 ), indicating that a child who 
makes a high score on one of these directions tends to make a high 
score on another of these directions. 

Bolton}? found that with children of eight years and older move- 
ments toward the body, as tested by the tracing board, were more 
steady than movements away from the body. Right and left hands 
were tested in four directions: directions 1 (J), 2 (—), 3 (7), 
and 4 (<). Thompson®® also found that adults made better scores 
on movements toward the body than on movements away from 
the body. Town? tested five and six-year-old children on direction 
2 (— ) with the right hand and on direction 4 ( <— ) with the left 
hand, but found it necessary to discard the left hand scores because 
of their large probable errors. 

The present results do not show significant differences between 
the scores made on movements toward and away from the body. 
Tracing Path Experiment 

If the rankings of the means in the tracing path experiment for 


8. 9 difference = Ve, “1072 28) 5095 
Kelley, T. L. Statistical Method. New York: Macmillan, 1923. Pp. 390 
(p. 182). 


50 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


the eight directions for the half year groups are considered irre- 
spective of the significance of the differences of the means, it is found 
that direction 1 (J) ) ranks first or second in five of the seven age 
groups and that direction 4 (<) ranks eighth in three of the 
groups and never higher than fifth. Direction 2 (—) is next to 
4 (<) in rank, and 3 (7) comes next, while the four angle move- 
ments rank between 1 (J) and3 (7). Judging from the rankings 
alone, directions 4 (< ) and 2 (—) were the most difficult move- 
ments and direction 1 (J) the easiest. These rankings can only 
give indications of difficulties, however, since the significance of 
the differences of the means should be taken into consideration. 
The significance of these differences will be discussed later in con- 
nection with the correlations of scores. 

It seemed probable that the averages might cover up individual 
differences and that a certain direction or combination of directions 
might be easy for one type of child and difficult for another type. 
Attempts to classify the individuals into types on the basis of com- 
binations of the ranks of the directions on the tracing path were, 
however, unsuccessful. 

Accuracy and Time of Each Trial_—tThe scores thus far reported 
for the children have been the averages of three trials in each 
direction of movement. In order to determine whether there was 
the same degree of accuracy for each of these trials, the average 
score of all children on the tracing path was computed separately 
for each trial. Since the child was allowed to choose his own rate 
of speed for the experiment, it seemed probable that there might 
be some relationship between the accuracy of a trial and the time 
that the child spent on it. The average number of seconds spent 
by all children on each trial was therefore also computed. Table 
24 gives these average scores and average times for each direction 
of movement. 

While the differences in scores are small between the first, second, 
and third trials, it will be noted that the first trial was the most 
accurate of the three for each direction of movement. Longer times 
were also spent on the first trial than on the other two trials for 
each direction except direction 6 (\,). There was a gradual 
quickening in time from one direction to the next within a day’s 
experiment, so that the average time spent on the fourth direction 
tested on each day was considerably less than the time spent on 


51 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 





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52 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


the first direction that day. This quickening in time might be 
interpreted as meaning that the directions became progressively 
easier, that the child was benefiting from each previous trial and 
‘‘oetting into the swing’’ of the test, that he was becoming more 
confident, or that he was losing interest and becoming careless. 
Introspections would have helped here, had it been possible to get 
them from preschool children. It was possible to test some adults 
to learn whether the same tendencies in time operated and to get 
their introspections. Six adults were tested on the first four direc- 
tions. Their average times in seconds were as follows: 


Direction 
1 2 3 4 
J erat kd <— 
First trial 18.2 a 8.2 7.2 
Second trial aie 05° 6.7 8.0 6.3 
Third trial 9.8 6.7 8.2 6.0 


Their times showed the same tendency as those of the children, that 


TABLE 25 


Correlations between Times on First, Second, and Third Trials for the Hight 
Directions on the Tracing Path 


Direction of movement 


Direction 
of ; 1 2 3 4 5 6 i 
movemen | = " = Y x JZ 
3 to 7 years (88 children, 264 correlated pairs) 
rian .66 
oF 64 .64 
aires 62 70 .63 
Dear, 45 31 22 37 
Ue se 36 37 32 25 42 
Vf 18 25 21 34 26 31 
SNS 36 35 30 40 45 .40 a yf 
3 years (24 children, 72 correlated pairs) 
fe gate 72 
Set b ae | .68 
4 ew .66 64 .63 
Da 27 09 ~.01 .07 
Bran 39 37 23 21 54 
te / 10 .08 15 21 .28 41 
Be 30 02 01 .24 30 30 .20 





MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 53 


4 years (18 children, 54 correlated pairs) 


Ae} Ray f 

3 1 62 ol 

Pes oo 41 .64 

5 es 21 .03 .07 —.01 

6 NS 29 39 21 aly! 21 

Tf —.01 -—.08 OE .07 12 18 

8 EX .08 01 ay ahs .28 .06 .04 
5 years (24 children, 72 correlated pairs) 

re saat 09 

3 4 .29 22 

iS rae ay 40 .26 

5 eh 50 A ly; 21 28 

6 i 32 a3! Bh) 11 46 

ane 14 16 25 27 .29 na hy 

8 RS 30 23 21 16 44 43 38 
6 years (16 children, 48 correlated pairs) 

Spee 87 

3 * 79 .84 

ea 86 92 82 

5 we 58 56 SE: 59 

6 A 44. my 34 34 50 

es 35 29 abe 29 19 26 

8 ite 47 Ase 40 48 58 54 24 


is, a general decrease as the test progressed, the fourth direction 
(<) taking less time than any other, in spite of the fact that 
three of the six adults considered the fourth direction the most 
difficult. Two considered direction 3 (7) the most difficult and 
the other person was uncertain. They were conscious that their 
speed was increasing, but attributed it mainly to motor habituation. 
One tendency in the children’s time that was not evident for the 
adults was that for the children the first trial in a new direction 
took a longer time than the third trial of the preceding direction. 
Evidently for the child a new direction presented more elements 
of a new situation than for an adult. The adults made practically 
perfect score throughout. 

In order to determine how much relationship there actually was 
between the time and the accuracy of a particular trial, correlations 
between the times and between the scores on separate trials on the 
eight directions and correlations between the scores and times on 
separate trials were worked out. 


o4 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


Correlations between Times and between Scores on Separate 
Trials—The correlations between the times for the trials on the 
different directions on the tracing path are given in Table 25. There 
were eighty-eight children for whom scores and times were available 
for each of the three trials on all eight directions of movement, 
making a total of 264 correlated pairs. When the entire group 
was used, the correlations between times on the different directions 
were significant in all cases, but varied in size from .18 between 
directions 1 and 7 to .70 between directions 2 and 4. The correla- 


TABLE 26 


Correlations between Scores on First, Second, and Third Trials for the Hight 
Directions on the Tracing Path 


Direction of movement 





Direction 
of ‘ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 
movemen J a , we sy Ny 7 
3 to 7 years (88 children, 264 correlated pairs) 
rage et Dep e , 
Bhar 67 74 
eye ak .66 -76 ah! 
anya 63 59 62 .63 
Degas 58 63 62 61 .66 
Gisey) .60 .69 65 66 67 09 
8 Pe ES iy Beg One ete nae | ee OED ROO TENE ge, 61 61 65 .66 .69 65 70 
3 Set Pe AN Cate (24 children, 72 correlated pairs) 
patois pL 
ih 27 29 
r Se 2am 27 41 24 
seme, .20 .08 32 17 
TOTS 7 30 24 16 .29 
(icy .08 33 reg 17 26 .06 
8 TER ENC T TM | eke Teh OLR 1a ae Carve nine oa Ree 12 -.01 .20 21 1 20 24 
4 MOS ia de bene Oe (18 children, 54 correlated pairs) 
RUSE Treo a Serene => 50 
oom 46 64 
Ae: 39 61 R519) 
Dine .24 33 22 42 
ee ab) .26 22 33 30 
ras aa as .40 40 38 29 
aN 21 34 22 32 44 35 2 





MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 55 


5 years (24 children, 72 correlated pairs) 


td Pees .28 

3 @ 16 40 

Deon 27 44 50 

5 gf 28 aly 19 mike: 

6 ns 21 a 7 aT 29 

7 A 42 44 2D so0 44 .26 

8 Eg 28 24 41 42 38 48 44 
6 years (16 children, 48 correlated pairs) 

rete 01 

3 t 12 sab 

7 hg orate CLT 18 28 

5 i, 42 —.30 .03 24 

6 NG oat —.06 04 20 BY | 

7 oe —.07 —.07 .30 28 —.04 at 

8 NS 25 18 40 45 -.01 36 24 


tions between the first four directions were much higher than the 
other correlations. The average for a specific direction with all 
others ranged from .35 to .46. There was thus a definite tendency 
for the children to be consistent in the amounts of time that they 
spent on two directions. They were much more consistent for 
directions 1, 2, 38, and 4 than for any other combinations. This 
does not mean that they spent the same amounts of time on the 
different directions, but that the trend for time taken was in the 
same direction for different children. 

Correlations between times on the tracing path for the separate 
age groups were also computed. At three years, seventy-two pairs 
were included in the calculations, at four years, fifty-four pairs, at 
five years, seventy-two pairs, and at six years, forty-eight pairs. 
At seven years there were eighteen pairs for which correlations 
were not computed because of the small number of children. A 
correlation of .21 or above is significant for the three and five-year 
groups, and a correlation of .27 or above is significant for the four 
and six-year groups. 

The correlations between scores on the separate trials that are 
given in Table 26 are all significant and high for the entire group, 
indicating that a child making a high score on one direction is 
likely to make a high score on another direction. The same group 


IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


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MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 57 


of children was used as for the correlations between times. When 
the age range is narrowed to one year, the correlations between 
scores on the different directions drop considerably. 

The means, standard deviations of the distributions, and standard 
errors of the means for these correlations between times and between 
scores are given in Table 27. It will be noted that the means for 
times decrease from the first to the last direction tested on a day 
and that the standard deviations for times decrease in the same 
way. The children grow more alike in the times they spend as 


TABLE 28 
Correlations between Scores and Times on Separate Trials for the Eight 
Directions on the Tracing Path 





SH tee “ . 
° or Direction of movement 
| fines 
oo oO @ =i aGneCeL a ae Le 
i Q roe 
ia a g2z 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 
60,5 mea ene 
eee e es ee Pe PON a 
3 to 7 88 264 Boy elo 6 49 ok 38 48 55 
3 24. 72 ts ee ss Le aah: 1 Bee aay 15 36 48 48 
4 18 54. 40° 365 47 64 47 54. 41 54 
5 24 72 BSer e285 Ee B14} 41 35 SW 44 
6 16 48 34.25:.67 47 46 27 24 50 47 


they progress from direction to direction. Neither the means nor 
standard deviations of the scores follow this trend of growing less 
from direction to direction. The children do not grow more alike 
in scores as they progress from direction to direction. 

Correlations between Scores and Times on Separate Trials —The 
correlations between times and scores for a specific direction (Table 
28) are all significant except for direction 5 at three years, for 
directions 3 and 4 at five years, and directions 5 and 6 at six years. 
Directions 1, 2, 7, and 8 are the only directions for which the cor- 
relations between times and scores are significant for every age 
group. 

Significant Differences in Means.——When the formula for deter- 
mining the standard error of the means when correlated measures 
are involved is applied to the means of the times and of the scores, 
it is found that there is only one combination, directions 4 and 5, 
in which there are significant differences in the means for both 
times and scores in at least three of the four age groups. There 
are two combinations, directions 3 and 6 and directions 6 and 7, in 


58 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


which no significant differences are found in either time or score 
in at least three age groups. There is only one combination, direc- 
tions 4 and 8, in which significant differences are found between the 
scores but not between the times, and there are nine combinations 
in which significant differences are found in times but not im scores 
for at least three age groups. These nine combinations are: 


Directions 1 and 3 Directions 2 and 4 
Directions 1 and 6 Directions 5 and 6 
Directions 1 and 8 Directions 5 and 8 
Directions 2 and 3 Directions 6 and 8 


Directions 7 and 8 


In the combination of directions 4 and 5, the mean time and mean 
score are lower for direction 4 than for 5, but the correlation be- 
tween time and score for each direction is not high enough to in- 
dicate that time is a primary factor in the score. The correlations 
for scores and for times for the age groups indicate that the chil- 
dren are not consistent in the times that they take on the two direc- 
tions, nor on the scores they make. Since, as has been pointed out 
previously, the time taken decreases from movement to movement, 
the differences in time between directions 4 and 5 may be due to 
sequence in the series. Direction 4 is the last for a day and direc- 
tion 5 the first for a day. When all the combinations of first 
and last movements in a series are compared it is found that direc- 
tions 1 and 4 differ in both scores and times at four and five years 
and in times but not in scores at three and six years; that directions 
1 and 8 and directions 5 and 8 differ in times but not in scores at 
all ages; and that directions 4 and 5 differ in both scores and times 
at all ages. When the two first and two last movements are com- 
pared it is found that directions 1 and 5 differ in times at three 
years and five years, but show no difference at four years and six 
years, and that directions 4 and 8 differ in times only at five years 
and in scores only at three, four, and six years. On the basis of 
these facts, it can be concluded that the significant difference in 
scores between directions 4 and 5 is not entirely due to sequence 
in the series, or to time spent, but may be due to the greater dif- 
ficeulty of direction 4. 

For the directions 4 and 8, in which significant differences were 
found in scores but not in times, the sequence within a day’s series 
is the same, that is, both are last movements. The correlations be- 
tween scores are probably all significant, but the correlations be- 


oF a ae 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 59 


tween times are not significant. Since the mean score for direction 
4 is lower than that for 8, direction 4 is probably more difficult 
than 8. 

For the three directions in the combinations in which there are 
no significant differences in the means either for scores or for times, 
directions 3 and 6 and directions 6 and 7, the sequence in the series 
is practically the same. Some of the correlations between scores 
and between times are significant and some are not. For this group 
of directions there is probably no difference in difficulty. 

In every combination except directions 2 and 3 of the nine com- 
binations in which there are significant differences in times but 
not in scores a first or last placement is involved. In every case 
the earlier of the two movements shows the longer time, indicating 
that the placement of the movement is affecting the time. Com- 
binations of directions 2 and 3, 5 and 6, and 7 and 8 are the only 
cases in which two movements that are next to each other show 
significant differences in time. For directions 2 and 3 the correla- 
tions are significant and high throughout for scores, indicating that 
a child who makes a high score on direction 2 also makes a high 
score on 3. The correlations between times are also significant 
and high, indicating that a child who spends a long time on direc- 
tion 2 also spends a long time on 3. Since this is the only com- 
bination of middle-placed movements in which there is a significant 
difference in times, the difference in times is probably due to a real 
difficulty in direction 2 as compared with 3. 

Combinations of directions 1 and 3, 1 and 6, and 1 and 8 show 
differences in times, but not in scores. Since there is a positive cor- 
relation for the times and a lack of correlation for the scores, it 
is fairly certain that the differences in times are due to position in 
the series. The same is probably true of directions 5 and 8, al- 
though there is a little more correlation between the scores here. 

Direction 2 takes a significantly longer time than 4. The cor- 
relations are very high for times and high for scores, except at six 
years, but since another direction intervenes between directions 2 
and 4, the difference in times is probably due to sequence in the 
series. 

Directions 6 and 8 are in the same relative sequence as 2 and 4. 
The correlations except at age three for scores and at age four for 
times are all significant for the combination of directions 6 and 8, 


60 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


and the difference in times is probably due to placement here also. 

Directions 7 and 8 are adjacent in sequence and do not show 
differences in scores, but do show differences in times. The cor- 
relations for scores may be significant, but the correlations for times 
probably are not significant. This is the only combination in which 
the correlations for times are not significant. Since the children are 
not consistent in the times on directions 7 and 8, and the mean 
scores show no differences, it can not be stated that direction 7 is 
more difficult than 8. 

There is a significant difference in times but not in scores for 
directions 5 and 6. The correlations for scores are significant and 
for times also significant and high. Since these two directions are 
adjacent, the greater time on direction 5 than on 6 is probably due 
to greater difficulty with 5 than with 6. 

In summing up the conclusions, then, it is found that: 


Direction 4 (<-) is probably more difficult than 5 (/“ ) and 
8 


No difference is found between directions 2 (— ) and 4 (<) 

Direction 2 (— ) is more difficult than 3 (7 ) 

Direction 5 ( “ ) is more difficult than 6 ( \, ) 

No difference is found between directions 3 ( ft ) and 6 ( \, ) and 
between 6 (\,) and7 (7) 

No difference is found between directions 1 (Jj) and 8 (‘), 


Py LAN) rend GaN) rand tots) sand oui 
No difference is found between directions 6 (\,) and 8 (\) 


Direction 7 ( 7) may be more difficult than 8 (\ ) 


Of the combination of directions 2 and 5 at three years, direction 
2 takes a shorter time than 5 and gains a lower score; at four years 
there is no difference for time, but direction 5 gains a higher score; 
at five years direction 2 takes a longer time than 5, but there is no 
difference in the scores; and at six years there is no difference either 
in seores or times. These findings indicate that direction 2 is more 
difficult than 5. The final conclusion as to relative difficulties, 
then, is: 


Directions 2(—) and 4 (<—) are the most difficult 

Direction 5 ( / ) is third in difficulty 

Directions 3(T),6(N),7(/), and1 (J) are relatively easy 
Direction 8 ( \_) is probably the easiest of all directions 


There is a possibility that direction 1 (| ) may be the easiest of 
all eight directions, but due to the fact that it occupies the position 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 61 


of the very first direction tested, when the child is facing an en- 
tirely new situation, it is impossible to determine definitely just 
where direction 1 should stand. 

TABLE 29 


Correlations between Scores (Average of Three Trials) on the Different 
Directions on the Tracing Path 





Direction of movement 


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Correlations between Scores on Three Trials.—When, the average 
of the three trials which make up the score in the other sections of 
this study is used instead of scores on separate trials, the correlations 
between the scores on the different directions are raised in every 
instance, as will be seen in Table 29, in which five combinations are 
reported for each age group. The correlations here are all signifi- 
eant and high and indicate that when a child’s scores are based on 
the average of three trials they are more likely to be similar for two 
directions than when the scores are based on separate trials. 

Deviations from Straight Line—Although when the children 
were given the tracing path test they were instructed merely to 
stay within the path, there was a tendency for the older child to 
make a straighter line than that of the younger child. How much 
more nearly straight this line was could be measured by our method 
of scoring. The difference was found between the total length 
of the line made and a hypothetical straight line from its start to 
finish, and this difference divided by the length of the straight 
line (in most cases 25 em.) in order to obtain the percentage of 
deviation from the straight line. Table 30 gives the average de- 
viations and standard deviations from these averages for each half 
year group. 

There was a definite tendency for the deviations to become less 
as age increased, that is, for the lines made to approximate more 
nearly straight lines, as will be seen from the combined averages 
for the eight directions. There was also a tendency for direction 


IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


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MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN _~ 63 


8 (\_) to show less deviation than the other directions, with its 
opposite direction 6 ( \, ) and direction 3 (7) ranking next in 
order, while 1 ( | ), 2 (—), and 4 (<) tended to show the great- 
est deviation. 


RELATION BETWEEN CO-ORDINATIONS IN EXPERIMENTS WITH TRACING 
BOARD AND TRACING PATH 


Correlations between scores on the separate directions on the 
tracing path and point of first contact on the tracing board were 
worked out in order to determine whether a child tended to make 
similar scores on the same direction for the two tests. The cor- 
relations for the entire group, ages three to six, were as follows: 


imi taal OE 
Direction 1 ( J ) 20.09 
Direction 2/(° 5 ) oot .07 
Direction 3 ( f ) 23.09 
Direction 4 ( e ) A8= .07 
Direction 5 ( / ) 40.09 
Direction 6 ( \, ) 04.08 
Direction 7 ( J ) 52.08 
Direction 8 ( \ ) A4+ .09 
Combined 6922.05 


While there was a positive relationship between scores on the same 
direction for the two tests, the correlations were considerably lower 
than the correlations between the directions on the tracing path 
(.80 to .86), but were about the same as the correlations between 
the directions on the tracing board. These correlations between 
the two tests would probably have been reduced if the age 
range had been narrower. When all eight directions were 
combined, the correlation was raised to .69 + .05, but when age 
was held constant by the method of partial correlation, the cor- 
relation dropped to .29 + .09, which, while positive, was only 
slightly greater than three times the probable error. The cor- 
relation between the combined scores for the eight directions on 
the tracing path and the combined scores for the eight directions 
on percentage within the path for the tracing board was .75 + .04, 
when the entire group of children was used. When age was held 
constant, the correlation became .47+ .07. This correlation is 
considerably higher than the .29 obtained when point of first con- 
tact was used as the score, and indicates that when percentage 
within the path was used children who scored high on the tracing 


64 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


path test also scored high on the tracing board test. From these 
correlations it seems, therefore, that there was a very slight re- 
lationship between the point of first contact on the tracing board 
and the tracing path scores, considering that they were intended 
to measure practically the same function, but that scoring by the > 
method of percentage within the path brought the tracing board 
results into closer agreement with the tracing path results. 


CHAPTER V 


PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL ELEMENTS OF MOVE- 
MENTS IN EXPERIMENT WITH TRACING PATH 


Examination of the lines made by the children in attempting 
to keep within the path in the tracing path experiment on motor 
coordination shows that there were marked differences in the prod- 
ucts at the various age levels. The younger child who succeeded 
with the test kept within the path but a relatively short time, made 
a Sweeping curve out of the path, and in attempting to get back 
in the path swung as much to the other side, so that his line crossed 
and recrossed the path in a rhythmical fashion. The still younger 
child who failed to understand the task made a quick slashing 
movement down the sheet of paper outside the path and did not 
attempt to swing into the path. The line that he produced was 
straighter than that of the child who made a low score. Figures 
4,5, and 6 are photographs of the records of six children for 
directions 2 (—>), 3 (7), and 5 (/) respectively, selected to 
show the general trends of lines and how the same type of line 
was produced by a given child throughout the various directions 
of movement. 

The record at the extreme left in each figure is that of F4, whose 
line sweeps back and forth across the path. This child was two 
years, eleven months old. The next record is that of a child three 
years, one month old who made a slightly higher score because she 
was able to change the direction of movement more abruptly. The 
remaining records show progressively more abrupt changes in the 
direction of movement and a consequent ironing out of the lines 
to the lme of M59, who kept almost entirely within the path al- 
though he fluctuated back and forth. This boy was six years, nine 
months of age and his scores were 95, 100, and 100 respectively 
for these three directions. 

What are the muscular factors that operate to produce these 
differences in performance at the various age levels? Are there 
differences in muscular adjustments that affect the scores, and, 
if so, are these differences intrinsic and necessary or are they due 
to psychological control? The question of differences in muscular 


65 


66 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 





F4 F8 F24 F48 F52 

Fig. 4. Lines of six children on direction 2 (—») 
Child F4 F8 F24 ¥F48 
Age, years and months 2-10 3-1 3-8 5-0 
Score 35 38 66 83 


Time, seconds 6 4 8 14 


ee 


F52 
5-3 
90 
th 





6-9 
9 
13 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 





4 F8 F24 F48 F52 
Fig. 5. Lines of six children on direction 3 (4) 
Child F4 F8 F24 ¥F48 
Age, years and months 2-10 3-1 3-8 5-0 
Score 34 41 64 88 
6 9 10 


Time, seconds 6 


F52 
5-3 
90 
16 


67 


68 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


nT A 
or SE NE 


TN AO OT ON EE II a eg i 


| 
! 
f 
\ 
f 
| 
| 
: 
F4 F8 F24 F48 F52 
Fig. 6. Lines of six children on direction 5 Le 
Child F4 FS F24 F48 ¥F52 
Age, years and months 2-11 3-2 3-8 5-1 5-3 
Score 44 60 73 81 86 


Time, seconds 9 13 12 18 16 


— 


ee 
—— 


— 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN _ 69 


adjustments may be answered in part by an analysis of the me- 
chanies of the movements that the children make while perform- 
ing the task. Some insight into the psychological factors of con- 
trol may be gained by changing the psychological conditions of 
the task but keeping the muscular requirements as constant as 
possible. 


MECHANICS OF MOVEMENTS 


Analysis was made of the movements in terms of physiological 
adjustments, flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, pronation, 
supination, and torsion. The analysis was made by observation 
of the children as they actually performed the test according to 
the usual procedure. For about half of the records obtained, two 
observers? noted the active movements involved in the perform- 
ance; one recorded the movements of the trunk, shoulder, and 
elbow, while the other recorded the movements of the forearm, 
wrist, and fingers. It was not possible for both observers to be 
present for all of the tests, hence the notations on some children 
were made by one observer working alone. The records were made 
as complete as possible. For each of directions 1 (J), 2 (—), 
3 (fT), and 4 (<), 183 records on sixty-one children were ob- 
tained. At three years of age there were six children, at four years, 
sixteen children, at five years, twenty-six children, at six years, 
eight children, and at seven years, five children. For directions 
9(/7),6(N), 7(7), and 8 (_), seventy-two records on 
twenty-four of these children were obtained. 

Fuller accounts of the movements made and the muscles em- 
ployed might have been gained had it been possible to have motion 
pictures of the children as they did the test. This was not feasible 
at the time, however, for such a large group of children. The 
present analysis brings out some rather significant gross differences 
in the children’s methods of approach. Unfortunately it could 
not include differences in the rhythm of movements and in the 
speed of the separate adjustments, which are important factors 
in the unity of a movement. The time for total performance was 
kept as usual. 

The sequence of the adjustments observed is indicated in gen- 
eral in the discussion by describing first for each direction the 


9. The writer was assisted in this work by Idell Pyle, research assistant in 
anthropometry in the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station. 


70 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


basic movements that were carried on through the entire perform- 
ance and describing next the additional adjustments that occurred 
as the performance progressed. At all ages, at the beginning of 
each of these tests the pencil was grasped by fingers 1 (thumb), 
2, and 3, with 4 and 5 in free flexion, and the forearm was in a 
semipronated position. 

For direction 1 (J) the position taken was that of flexion of 
the fingers, elbow, and shoulder. The basic and predominating 
active movement at all ages for direction 1 was elbow flexion com- 
bined with shoulder extension, except at age seven, when wrist 
flexion was the primary movement, supplemented by finger flexion, 
and alternating with elbow fiexion and shoulder extension when 
the wrist had reached its maximum flexion. Wrist flexion was 
not used at any other age. Active finger flexion was noted in some 
children at all ages, but more in the older children than the. 
younger. Body torsion was notable in the three-year-old children 
and trunk flexion and extension were present in half of the four- 
year-old children, but were gradually eliminated in the older 
groups. Pronation was evident as early as three years, but was 
not largely used except at age four, when it was observed in about 
one-third of the children. 

For direction 2 (— ) the position at the beginning of the move- 
ment was elbow and finger flexion, and the basic active movements 
at all ages were elbow flexion and shoulder extension. Wrist 
flexion was not used for this direction except in the case of two 
seven-year-old children, since it was particularly difficult and 
practically impossible without elevation of the wrist from the 
paper. Body movements were again noted at the younger ages, 
although less frequently than for direction 1. Pronation occurred 
to some extent at all ages except age seven, and shoulder abduction 
at all ages except age three, when pronation and body torsion were 
substituted. Ulnar adduction occurred in about one fourth of the 
four- and five-year-old children. 

For direction 3 ( t ) the position was elbow flexion, shoulder flex- 
ion, and shoulder abduction. The basic active movement was elbow 
extension, combined with shoulder flexion at ages three, four, and 
five, and with wrist flexion in addition at age seven. At age six the 
supplementary movements were varied, pronation, shoulder adduc- 
tion, shoulder abduction, wrist flexion, and body torsion occurring 
with some of the children and in different combinations. Ulnar ad- 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 71 


duction, finger flexion, and body flexion were noted in one third of 
the five-year-old children. 

For direction 4 ( <— ) the position was that of elbow flexion and 
shoulder extension. The basic active movement was elbow extension 
with shoulder flexiun and pronation. Body torsion and trunk exten- 
sion were quite prominent ini the four-year group, and trunk flexion 
was noted in several instances in the five and six-year groups. Some 
wrist flexion was present in the seven-year-old children. Ulnar ad- 
duction occurred in one fourth of the four and five-year-old chil- 
dren. 

For directions 5, 6, 7, and 8 the number of cases was too small for 
age analysis of the movements. Directions 5 and 6 were largely ac- 
complished by elbow flexion, combined with wrist flexion, and sup- 
plemented sometimes by shoulder extension and sometimes by shoul- 
der abduction. Shoulder extension occurred in a larger number of 
cases in direction 6 than in direction 5, and wrist flexion was more 
prominent in direction 5 than in direction 6. Finger flexion. was prev- 
alent for both directions. For directions 7 and 8 elbow extension, 
shoulder abduction, and shoulder flexion were the basic movements. 
Ulnar adduction, was used by practically all of the six-year-old chil- 
dren, and by some of the five-year-old children, although pronation 
was more common at five years. Radial adduction was used by some 
children at seven years and wrist extension by some. 

In summing up the results for all of the directions, it is found 
that body movements—hody torsion, trunk flexion, and trunk exten- 
slon—were common among the younger children, that these body 
movements were gradually eliminated as age increased, and that 
localization of control in the wrist was prevalent among the older 
children. 

What are the muscular adjustments, apart from those mentioned 
in relation to age, that a child makes who earns a high score on the 
test and how do they differ from those of the child who earns a low 
score? To throw light on this question some individual records were 
compared. Two pairs of children of the same age were selected on 
the basis of widely differing scores, one child of each pair making 
consistently high scores and the other child making consistently low- 
er scores. The active movements of each child in the pairs are pre- 
sented here: 


72 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


F28 


Age: 3 years, 10 months 


Score 94 
Finger flexion 
Elbow flexion 
Shoulder abduction 


Score 92 
Elbow flexion 
Shoulder abduction 
Finger flexion 
Wrist extension 
Ulnar adduction 


to 
Radial adduction 


Score 76 
Finger flexion 
Elbow extension 
Shoulder flexion 
Shoulder abduction 
Radial adduction 


Seore 81 
Finger flexion 
Radial adduction 
to 
Ulnar adduction 
Elbow extension 
Shoulder abduction 


F 31 


Age: 4 years, 1 month 


Seore 94 
Elbow flexion 
Body flexion 
Finger extension 
Shoulder extension 


M 27 
Age: 3 years, 10 months 


Direction 1 ( | ) 


Score 73 
Finger flexion 
Elbow flexion 
Shoulder abduction 
Ulnar adduction 
Pronation 
Shoulder extension 


Direction 2 ( ~» ) 


Seore 64 
Elbow flexion 
to 
Elbow extension 
Shoulder adduction 
Pronation 
Body torsion 


Direction 3 ( f ) 


Score 49 
Finger flexion 
Elbow extension 
Shoulder flexion 
Ulnar adduction 


Direction 4 ( e ) 


Seore 60 
Ulnar adduction 
Shoulder flexion 


M29 
Age: 4 years, 0 month 


Direction 1 ( | ) 


Score 78 
Elbow fiexion 
Body flexion 
Pronation 
Shoulder flexion 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 73 


Direction 2 ( ~—» ) 


Score 91 Score 78 
Elbow flexion Elbow flexion 
Ulnar adduction Wrist flexion 
to Pronation 
Radial adduction to 
Supination 


Direction 3 ( 4 ) 


Seore 95 Score 47 
Elbow extension Elbow extension 
Shoulder flexion Shoulder flexion 
Pronation 


Direction 4 ( — ) 


Seore 85 Seore 51 
Elbow extension Elbow extension 
Shoulder flexion Shoulder flexion 
Pronation Pronation 
Wrist flexion Body extension 
Radial adduction Body torsion 


The two girls who earned the higher scores were from one and one- 
half to two years beyond their age level in score, while the two boys 
made scores at about their age level. Comparison of the movements 
of the two members of a pair show that there were differences be- 
tween the movements made by the child earning a high score and the 
movements of the child earning a low score. There were also differ- 
ences between the movements made by the two children earning high 
scores, which were practically as great as the differences between 
the members of a pair. In only two instances the two high scorers 
used an identical movement that was not used by the poor scorers. 
These instances were for direction 2, on which the high scorers used 
ulnar adduction, which was changed to radial adduction as the move- 
ment progressed, and for direction 4, on. which they used radial ad- 
duction. Pronation in directions 1 and 2 was the only movement 
used by both low scorers that was not used by the high scorers. These 
results seem to point to the conclusion that the adjustments were 
probably matters of individual differences and that the explanation 
for the likenesses and differences in scores for two children of the 
same age must be sought elsewhere than in the types of adjustments 
observed. 

A pair of children was also selected on the basis of scores compar- 
able with the scores of the other two pairs, but the members of which 
differed in age. One child was five years, two months old and the 
other three years, six months old. 


74 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


Parr III 
M 36 M 25 
Age: 5 years, 2 months Age: 3 years, 6 months 
Direction 1 ( | ) 
Score 96 Score 71 
Finger flexion Finger flexion 
Pronation Pronation 


Elbow flexion 
Shoulder adduction 


Seore 95 
Finger flexion 
Pronation 
Shoulder abduction 
Wrist extension 
Elbow flexion 


Seore 97 
Finger flexion 
Elbow extension 


Elbow flexion 
Wrist flexion 
Radial adduction 
Shoulder extension 
Knee flexion, 


Direction.2.(7 >a) 
Score 52 
Finger flexion 
Pronation 
Shoulder abduction 
Knee flexion 


Direction 3 ( ff ) 


Score 70 
Finger flexion 
Body flexion 


Shoulder abduction 


Direction 4 ( e ) 


Score 51 
Finger flexion 
Elbow extension 
Shoulder extension 
Body torsion 


Score 94 
Finger flexion 
Wrist extension 
Elbow flexion 


In this pair the most marked differences in movement were in the 
presence of knee flexion, body flexion, and body torsion in the three 
and one-half-year-old child and in the absence of these body move- 
ments in the five-year-old child. 


INDICATIONS OF PRESSURE 


It was noted from observation of the movements, particularly 
flexion. of the fingers and pronation, and by the shade of the line 
produced that during a trial the children used varying amounts of 
pressure upon the pencil. A permanent record of the amount of 
pressure was desired, if such could be obtained without changing the 
conditions of the test. Complicated apparatus for recording pres- 
sure such as that used by Freeman’? in his writing experiments did 
not seem advisable with these young children. 

Dental wax was first placed under the test sheets and the test 
given in the usual manner. Inspection of the wax afterwards showed 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN — 75 


that there were changes in the amount of pressure during a trial. 
These variations showed as clearly, however, on the back side of the 
test papers themselves, whether the wax or beaverboard was under- 
neath, since the beaverboard was also relatively soft. Where the 
pressure was extreme, the pencil point nearly broke through the pa- 
per; where it was slight, the line was not visible on the opposite side. 

There were considerable individual variations in the amounts of 
pressure exerted. Most children used more pressure at the begin- 
ning of the trial than in any other part. This heavier pressure lasted 
about 1 or 2 em., and in exceptional cases about 5 em.; then the line 
became lighter and lighter until at the end of the trial the line was 
not visible on the back of the sheet. If a child went off the path, 
stopped and began: a new line within the path, instead of continuing 
his movement and swinging back into the path, as happened in a 
few cases, the new line which was begun showed the same greater 
pressure at the beginning. 

Another method of determining relative pressure on the pencil 
was by the depth of the imprints in plasticene that had been wrapped 
around the pencil about 3 mm. thick. The plasticene was a some- 
what distracting factor; the children asked, ‘‘ Why do you put clay 
around it?’’ Twenty-four records on six children and one record 
each on three adults were obtained. The pressure used by one adult 
who had had considerable training in penmanship was so light that 
the positions of the fingers could not be determined later. Individ- 
ual differences existed among the children, but the pressure was suf- 
ficient in every case to make a decided imprint on the plasticene, the 
pressure usually being greatest with the forefinger and next with 
the thumb. Of the other two adults, one used less pressure than the 
children, and the other used greater pressure than any of the chil- 
dren, the greatest pressure in her case coming from finger 38, in con- 
tast with the other two adults, who, like the children, exerted most 
pressure with fingers 1 and 2. 


TIME FACTORS IN MOVEMENTS 


In the main experiment the total time of performance was record- 
ed by means of a stop watch. A special experiment was made in 
order to determine the length of time the child spent in the various 
parts of the movement. Light pencil dots were placed on the test 
sheets 2 em. apart and about 2 em. outside the guidelines. The child 
took the test in the usual manner, while the experimenter sat at the 


16 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


end of the table with a stylus and tapping apparatus on her lap un- 
der the table and out of the range of vision of the child. As the 
child passed each dot the experimenter tapped and the taps were 
recorded on a kymograph drum in the adjoming room. ‘This 
method of course involved the reaction time of the experimenter, 
but all records were made by the same experimenter. A time line 
was taken simultaneously in fifths of a second by a standard chro- 
nometer. Most of the children did not notice that the experimenter 
held the apparatus, and the test was in every other way comparable 
to the standard method. Fifty-seven time records were taken. 

An examination of the time records shows a tendency to a very 
slow rate for the first 2 em., or starting of the movement with a 
gradual increase in speed through the central portion of the path, 
a gradual decrease for the latter portion, and the slowest rate for 
the last centimeter, with stopping of the movement. 

Special conditions, however, operated to change the speed. If the 
child got outside or too near the guidelines he slowed up until he 
felt that he was safely back again. Occasionally a child slowed up 
or stopped entirely to make some remark. Since these changes in 
the rate of movement were for the most part brought about by the 
attempt of the children to keep within the confines of the guidelines, 
general conclusions can not be made on the rate of speed they would 
take in drawing lines under different conditions. In a majority of 
the cases the first trial took considerably longer than either of the 
other two trials. This is in agreement with the findings on total 
time taken by the stop watch method during the course of the main 
experiment. Figure 7 is a sample record which illustrates some of 
these tendencies. 


FREELINE MOVEMENTS 


In order to test whether the sharp turns and curves in the lines 
made by the children were due to lack of muscular control or to 
psychological factors, a variation of the test was devised. After a 
rest or play period following a test given in the usual way, the child 
was brought back and given sheets of paper on which were two dots 
25 em. apart. The instructions were: ‘‘See this dot [pointing] 
and this dot [pointing]. I want you to make a mark from this dot 
to this dot.’’? Thirty records on dot tests were secured. 

Figures 8 and 9 show three trials each in the same directions with 
the guidelines and with the dots for a girl (F30) and a boy (M12). 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 17 








Fig. 8. F30, at four years, five months, took twenty-two seconds, thirteen 
seconds, and nineteen seconds for the three trials on direction 7 (7) with the 
guidelines, but only seven seconds each for the three trials on the same direc- 
tion without the guidelines. 


78 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


~ vere . 3 < Pras Ren needs a PSS es 
SRR Bm CR A ESE OE paweurer se an 


a ea eee 


Fig. 9. Abrupt changes in freeline movement were made by M12, aged three 
years, six months, when he missed the dots on the second and third trials on 
direction 1 GABE 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN = 79 


The most outstanding feature of the dot records is their freedom 
from curves and angles when compared with the guideline tests. 
When the child realized that he was moving in a direction that would 
bring him away from the dot, he shifted the direction of movement 
gradually, as is illustrated in the second trial with the girl and the 
first trial with the boy. Sometimes when the realization that the 
dot would be missed came late, as in the case of the second and third 
trials with the boy, sharp turns were made. 

Another characteristic of the dot test is that the trials consumed 
very much less time than the guideline trials. The three trials with 
the guidelines for the girl took 22 seconds, 13 seconds, and 19 see- 
onds, respectively and with the dot test 7 seconds each. For the 
boy, the differences were even greater, the time being 22 seconds, 21 
seconds, and 16 seconds on the three trials of the guideline tests, and 
4 seconds, 4 seconds, and 5 seconds on the dot tests. Similar differ- 
ences in time and in type of line were noted for all of the children 
tested. 

It would seem, then, that the curves and angles in the lines on the 
tracing path were products of conscious attempts to keep within the 
path and of inhibitions aroused by the guidelines, since it has been 
demonstrated that the children were capable of making straighter 
lines when the guidelines were absent. There is probably no physi- 
ological reason why such fluctuations should have appeared, unless 
possibly the slower rate that was adopted voluntarily may have 
tended to cause unsteadiness. 

Test records with the dots differed from those with the guidelines 
also in the amount of pressure; with the dot test there was not 
yvreater pressure at the beginning of the trials, as with the guide- 
lines, and the pressure was almost uniform for the entire length of 
the trial. Children who exerted decided pressure at the start with 
the guidelines failed to exert this pressure when the dots were sub- 
stituted. Apparently the greater pressure at the beginning of a 
trial was not a necessary part of getting a movement started, but 
came about from an attempt to make an accurate adjustment within 
the guidelines. 

Differences in the focusing of the eyes for the two tests were also 
observed. The examiner sat in a low chair beside the child and could 
easily watch the movements of the child’s eyes without distracting 
the child. Notations were made of the eye movements of the chil- 
dren in thirty-three tests. When the child made the freeline move- 


80 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


ment, he usually looked at the first dot until he had progressed about 
5 em., then he shifted his gaze to the goal dot and kept it focused 
there until he had finished. Some exceptional children made a sup- 
plementary shift or two back to the pencil and then to the goal dot 
again. When the guideline test was given, the eye shifts were more 
frequent for the same children and took in smaller units. There 
was not the large shift to the end of the path, but the progress was 
gradual in fairly definite units. Sometimes there were movements 
of the head in addition to movements of the eye. The highest num- 
ber of definite movements of the eye observed for any trial was thir- 
teen, made by a child whose average number of shifts for the guide- 
line test was 8.5, plus turning of the head, and whose average 
number of shifts for the dot test was four, this being above the 
average of all children for the dot test. What evidence is at hand 
seems to indicate that the eye movements were not important of 
themselves, but were indicative of mental processes. The number 
of cases studied was small, but the same conditions were observed in 
all instances. More data are needed on this phase of the problem. 


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CHAPTER VI 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION, PHYSICAL GROWTH, 
AND INTELLIGENCE 


It seemed worth while to inquire whether any relation existed be- 
tween the types of motor coordination involved in this investigation 
and physical growth, intelligence, and various other types of motor 
coordination. 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION AND PHYSICAL GROWTH 


Physical measurements taken each month were available on all of 
the children. These measurements were taken by research assistants 
in the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station according to the technic 
deseribed by Baldwin.19 Height, length of forearm, length of upper 
arm, and area of wrist bones were selected for the correlations, 
which are given in Table 31. 

The raw correlations for each sex from three to six years of age 
between. the physical measurements and point of first contact on the 
tracing board were high. When age was held constant there was 
apparently a positive relation with height for boys and girls, and 
with length of forearm and of upper arm for the girls but not for 
the boys. In view of the peculiar differences between sexes, how- 
ever, the correlations probably should not be relied upon greatly. 

The raw correlations between the average scores on all directions 
on the tracing path and the physical measurements were also high, 
but when age was held constant the correlations lost their signifi- 
cance. 

From these correlations it can not be stated what the relationship 
is within an age group between physical size and the motor co- 
ordinations involved in these tests. 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION AND INTELLIGENCE 


Mental age on the Stanford-Binet test was calculated to the time 
at which the tracing board and tracing path tests were given, on the 
basis of the constancy of the intelligence quotient. When the group 


10. Baldwin, B. T. Physical Growth from Birth to Maturity. Univ. of Iowa 
Stud. in Child Welf., 1921, 1, No. 1. Pp. 411. 


81 


82 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


TABLE 31 
Correlations between Physical Measurements and Average Scores of the Hight 
Directions Combined on Point of First Contact on the Tracing Board 
and on the Tracing Path 







Age constant 
Physical Boys Girls Boys Girls 
measurement Penile; lok, Ut ETE ads et td BP ie PS 

r P.E. r Pi. r bei ae . P.E. 


Tracing board 







Height 85 = .04 58 + .08 36 = .12 80 sbelZ 
Length of forearm Nei ad Vy f .63 = .08 -.07 = 13 412+ .10 
Length of upper arm uf fh Way ¥ G2 OS ot mea ko potas kee Bt! piensa | 





Tracing path 


Height ote 0S 12- 04 ai Wi gined Mi}. 02 = — 
Length of forearm 74 .04 67 = .04 15+ 08 -01= — 
Length of upper arm 74 + .04 67 = .04 15/08 02 —- — 
Area of wrist bones 06 + .07 65 + .05 01+ — -12 + .09 


included children from three to six years of age, the correlations 
between the point of first contact on the tracing board for all eight 
directions combined and mental age were .71-+.07 for the boys and 
.66-+.07 for the girls. When chronological age was held constant, 
the correlations became —.46-.11 for the boys and .46-.10 for the 
girls. The differences between the sexes are again difficult to inter- 
pret. 

For all children, the correlations between mental age and the 
tracing path scores for all eight directions combined were .734.04 
for the boys and .76+.03 for the girls. When age was held constant, 
the correlations were .09+.08 for the boys and .22+.07 for the girls. 

The correlations of the two tests with mental age were about the 
same size as the correlations with physical measurements. There 
was apparently no greater relationship between the codrdinations 
involved in these tests and mental age than there was between these 
coordinations and physical development. 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION ACCORDING TO VARIOUS MEASURES 


It was possible to determine whether the codrdinations involved 
in the tracing board and tracing path tests were similar to those in- 
volved in other measures of motor ability, since five other tests that 
involve motor codrdination to a large extent had been given to this 
group of children by the research assistants. These five tests were 
the Porteus maze, a perforation test, card sorting, three hole, and 
walking board. The technic of giving these tests and the method of 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN _ 83 


scoring are given in Baldwin and Stecher’s® Psychology of the Pre- 
school Chald. 

For the point of first contact on the tracing board the correlations 
with the perforation test were the h'ghest of the five when chron- 
ological age and mental age were held constant, whereas for the 
tracing path they were the lowest. The correlation between the 
card sorting and tracing board tests dropped to .08 when mental age 
was held constant, whereas with the tracing path there was a cor- 


TABLE 32 
Correlations between Motor Tests and Average Scores of the Eight Directions 
Combined on Point of First Contact on the Tracing Board and on the 
Tracing Path 


Age constant 


Chrono- 
logical Mental 


r P.E. r PE: r Pos 


Tracing board 


Porteus maze 62 = .06 
Perforation .69 + .05 
Card sorting 4 41s gaunt tp 
Three hole .66 + .06 
Walking board 42 + .09 


.09 
Mee 
10 
.09 
210 


10 
.08 
10 
.09 
10 


bE EH Ht 
Beene 
tt Ht Ht Ht 


Tracing path 





Porteus maze oh te Oy 4 <= .08 45 —& .09 
Perforation 00 2. U7 2 Reedtee Eh .09 + 15 
Card sorting 86 = .03 0°=2.09 49 + .09 
Three hole 4G 2 2.05 A ee iV Vea ntl Uy § 
Walking board (oy ail ig id § load 1 | w26 = 10 


relation of .49. There was apparently no relationship between the 
scores on the walking board and tracing board tests when chronolog- 
ical age and mental age were held constant, and there were but low 
partial correlations between the scores on the Porteus maze and the 
tracing board tests and between the three hole and tracing board 
tests. 

The raw correlations between the tracing path scores and the five 
tests were high. When chronological age and mental age were held 
constant the correlations with the Porteus maze and with the ecard 
sorting test scores were still significant and substantial, indicating 
that the tracing path test had something in common with these two 
tests apart from the influence of chronological age and mental age. 
There was practically no correlation between the scores of the per- 


84 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


foration test and the tracing path test when chronological age and 
mental age were held constant; there was a tendency toward a cor- 
relation between the scores of the walking board and tracing path 
tests, and a low but probably significant correlation between the 
scores of the three hole test and tracing path tests when. chronolog- 
ical age and mental age were held constant. 


CHAPTER VII 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 


Observation convinees one that there are individual differences 
in the ability of young children to meet the demands that are con- 
stantly being made upon them for the coordination of movements. 
The investigation reported herein deals with some phases of these 
differences in motor coordination of young children, with particu- 
lar emphasis on the analysis of the influence of direction of move- 
ment on control of hand and arm movements and on the analysis of 
the psychological and muscular factors involved in this control. 

A child’s ability to make movements in eight primary directions 
was tested in a preliminary experiment with a modification of the 
Stoelting tracing board as the apparatus, and later with a tracing 
path that was devised to remedy some special difficulties with the 
tracing board. The directions of the movements were: 


down 

left to right 

up 

right to left 
right to left down 
left to right down 
left to right up 
right to left up 


In the tracing path test the child was asked to draw a line on a sheet 
of paper between two printed lines 25 em. long and 5 mm. apart at 
one end and 1 mm. apart at the other end. 

The subjects included 186 children from three to six years of age 
in the Preschool Laboratory and Junior Primary Group of the Iowa 
Child Welfare Research Station and in the first grade of the Ele- 
mentary School of the State University of Iowa; many of the chil- 
dren acted as subjects for repeated tests and special experiments. 

The most significant results of the investigation are summarized 
herewith: 

1. The tracing path test was found to be more satisfactory for 
purposes of detailed analysis of movement and to give more reliable 
scores than the tracing board test. 


85 


86 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


2. The reliability of the tracing path test ranged from .88 at 
three years to .95 at five years. When the age range was from three 
to six years, the reliability was .98-+.002 for the tracing path test 
and .90-£.01 for the tracing board test. 

3. Scoring the results of the tracing board test by the method of 
percentage within the path brought the results into closer agree- 
ment with the results on the tracing path test than scoring by the 
usual point of first contact on the tracing board. 

4. No sex differences were found in scores on either test. 

5. The tracing path test was applicable to children two years, 
nine months of age and older. 

6. The older child went a longer distance before making contact 
on the tracing board than the younger child. The older child kept 
within the path for a longer distance on the tracing path. The 
scores at six years nearly doubled those at three years. The corre- 
lation between age and the combined score on eight directions on 
the tracing path was .81.03 for the boys and .82+.03 for the girls 
from three to six years of age. 

7. Different types of movements were made at the various ages. 
Body movements (torsion, trunk flexion, trunk extension, and knee 
flexion) were more common among the younger children, while con- 
trol was localized in the hand and wrist among the older children. 
There were wide individual differences in types of movements. 

8. A child who made a high score on one direction on the tracing 
path tended to make a high score on another direction. The corre- 
lations between scores based on the average of three trials were signi- 
ficant and high, ranging from .80+.03 to .89+.01 when the group 
included children from three to six years, and from .32-+.12 to 
.90+.03 when year groups were used. 

9. Movements with the left hand were more difficult than move- 
ments with the right hand. The difference between the two hands 
became greater as age increased. Children who made more accu- 
rate movements with the right hand than others of the group also 
made more accurate movements with the left hand. 

10. Movements in directions left to right and right to left were 
particularly difficult for the children to make with the right hand. 
Movements from right to left were especially difficult with the left 
hand also. Movement from left to right was easier in comparison 
with the other movements for the left hand than for the right hand, 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN = 87 


and many of the children’s actual scores with the left hand on this 
direction exceeded their scores with the right hand. 

11. There was less deviation from a true straight line for the 
angle direction right to left up than for any other direction with 
the right hand. This was probably the easiest direction. The great- 
est deviations were on directions down, left to right, and right to 
left. 

12. Quicker movements and straighter lines were made when 
the inhibiting effect of the printed guidelines was removed than 
when the guidelines were present. 

13. There was a speeding up from direction to direction within 
a day’s test, apparently due mainly to motor habituation. 

14. The first trial was more accurate than the second and third 
trials and took a longer time. 

15. Speed changes within a trial were conditioned by special 
factors of attention. Initiating and inhibiting a movement required 
a slower rate than continuing a movement. 

16. Children who took the test twice made higher scores the 
second time than other children at the same ages, although their 
first scores were not higher than the scores of other children at the 
same ages. 

17. There was no apparent transfer of training from one direc- 
tion to another. 

18. Children who made high scores on the tracing path test also 
made high scores on the Porteus maze and eard sorting tests, even 
when the influence of mental age and of chronological age on the 
scores was eliminated. There was a tendency for them also to make 
high scores on the three hole and walking board tests, but not on the 
perforation test. 

19. There was apparently no greater relationship between the 
coordinations involved in the tracing board and tracing path tests 
and general intelligence than between the coordinations and physi- 
cal development. 

These results suggest the need for continuation of the present in- 
vestigation with special reference to some specific phases of develop- 
ment of motor coordination. Further study is needed to determine 
what would be the effect of altering the sequence of directions tested, 
and to determine which directions should be included and which can 
be discarded in measuring as accurately as possible a child’s ability 
to coordinate his movements. Such questions as the relation of 


88 IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


motor control to physical development and to general nervous stabil- 
ity can be answered best by the accumulation of larger numbers of 
records at specific ages. The question of what effect training has 
upon motor control in young children can best be answered by re- 
peated measurements on the same children. The present investiga- 
tion has dealt with movement over a specified distance. It remains 
for further investigation to determine whether similar results will 
be obtained when shorter or longer distances are involved. 


REFERENCES 


The articles and reports that the writer has found most valuable in this study 
are indicated by symbols as follows: 


* Motor control in preschool children 
** General treatises on motor control 
+t Experiments with the tracing board 
tt Experiments on writing movements 


Uy. 
2. 
3. 
4. 


t13. 


mits 


Abelson, A. R. The Measurement of Mental Ability of ‘‘Backward’’ 
Children. Brit. J. of Psychol., 1911, 4, 268-314. 

Affleck, G. B. A Minimum Set of Tentative Physical Standards for 
Children of School Age. Ped. Sem., 1920, 27, 324-353. 

Bagley, W. C. On the Correlation of Mental and Motor Ability in 
School Children. Amer. J. of Psychol., 1901, 12, 193-205. 

Baker, H. J. Mental Tests as an Aid in the Analysis of Mental Con- 
stitution. J. of Appl. Psychol., 1922, 6, 349-377. 

Baldwin, B. T., and Stecher, L. I. The Psychology of the Preschool 
Child. New York: Appleton, 1924. Pp. 305. 

Bassett, D. M., and Porteus, 8. D. Sex Differences in Porteus Maze 
Test Performance. Tr. School Bull., 1920, 17, 105-120. 

Beeley, A. L. An Experimental Study in Left Handedness. Chicago: 
Univ. of Chicago Press, 1918. Pp. 74. 

Berry, R. A., and Porteus, 8. D. Intelligence and Social Valuation. <A. 
Practical Method for the Diagnosis of Mental Deficiency and Other 
Forms of Social Inefficiency. Vineland, N. J., Tr. School Pub. No. 20, 
1920. Pp. 100. 

Bickersteth, M. E. The Application of Mental Tests to Children of 
Various Ages. Brit. J. of Psychol., 1917, 9, 23-73. 

Binet, A., and Courtier, J. Sur la vitesse des mouvements graphiques. 
Rev. phil., 1893, 35, 664-671. 

Binet, A., and Vaschide, N. Epreuves de vitesse chez les jeunes gar- 
cons. Ann. psychol., 1897, 4, 64-98. 

Bolton, T. L. The Relation of Motor Power to Intelligence. Amer. J. 
of Psychol., 1903, 14, 615-631. 

Bryan, W. L. On the Development of Voluntary Motor Ability. Amer. 
J. of Psychol., 1892, 5, 123-204. 

Burk, F. From Fundamental to Accessory in the Development of the 
Nervous System and of Movements. Ped. Sem., 1899, 6, 3-64. 

Burt, C. Experimental Tests of General Intelligence. Brit. J. of Psychol., 
1909, 3, 94-177. 

Burt, C. Mental and Scholastic Tests. London: P. 8. King & Son, 
1921. Pp. 432. 

Burt, C., and Moore, R. C. The Mental Differences between the Sexes. 
J. of Exper. Ped., 1911, 1, 273-284; 355-388. 

Buyse, R. Introduction 4 1’étude psychographique de la fonction 
motrice. Bull. de l’Inst. gén. psychol., 1920, 20, 1-153. 

Carlisle, C. L. Performance Norms for Thirteen Tests and Mental 
Examinations. J. of Educ. Psychol., 1918, 9, 518-523. 

Conway, C. E. Performance Norms for Thirteen Tests. New York 
State Board of Charities, Eugenics, and Social Welfare Bull., No. 8, 
1917. > Pp. 142, 

Cowdery, K. M. A Note on the Measurement of Motor Ability. J. of 
Educ. Psychol., 1924, 15, 513-519. 


89 


90 


tt29. 


tt31. 


meas 


*36. 


IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


Cummins, R. A. A Study of Defective Pupils in the Public Schools of 
Tacoma, Wash. Psychol. Clinic, 1914, 8, 153-169. 

Cunningham, K. 8. Binet and Porteus Tests Compared. Examina- 
tion of One Hundred School Children. J. of Educ. Psychol., 1916, 7, 
552-557. 

Douglass, A. A., and Dealey, W. L. Micromotion Studies Applied to 
Education. Ped. Sem., 1916, 23, 241-261. 

Drever, J. A New Method of Registering Writing Pressure. J. of 
Exper. Ped., 1913, 2, 25-28. 

English, H. B. An Experimental Study of Mental Capacities of School 
Children, Correlated with Social Status. Psychol. Monog., 1917, 23 
(No. 100), 266-331. 

Foote, E. C. Thumb-Finger Opposition. Tr. School Bull., 1918, 15, 
110-113. 

Freeland, G. E. A Year’s Study of the Daily Learning of Six Chil- 
dren. Ped. Sem., 1921, 28, 97-115. 

Freeman, F. N. Experimental Analysis of the Writing Movement. 
Psychol. Monog., 1914, 17 (No. 75), Pp. 46. 

Freeman, F. N. The Psychology of the Common Branches. Boston: 
Houghton Mifflin Co., 1916. Pp. 275. 

Freeman, F. N. The Handwriting Movement. A Study of the Motor 
Factors of Excellence in Penmanship. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago 
Press, 1918. 0 Pp.1 69. 

Freeman, F. N. The Scientific Evidence on the Handwriting Move- 
ment. J. of Educ. Psychol., 1921, 12, 253-270. 

Garfiel, E. The Measurement of Motor Ability. Arch. of Psychol., 
1923, 9 (No. 62), Pp. 47. 

Gates, A. I. Variations in Efficiency During the Day, together with 
Practice Effects, Sex Differences and Correlations. Umnw. of Cal. Pub. 
in Psychol., 1916, 2, 1-156. 

Gates, A. I. The Abilities of an Expert Marksman Tested in the 
Psychological Laboratory. J. of Appl. Psychol. 1918, 2, 1-14. 

Gates, A. I., and Taylor, G. A. The Acquisition of Motor Control in 
Writing by Pre-School Children. Teach. Coll. Rec., 1923, 24, 459-468. 
Gesell, A. L. Accuracy in Handwriting as Related to School Intelli- 
gence and Sex. Amer. J. of Psychol., 1906, 17, 394-405. 

Gesell, A. Mental and Physical Correspondence in Twins. Scient. 
Mo., 1922, 14, 305-331; 415-428. 

Gesell, A. The Mental Growth of the Preschool Child. New York: 
Maemillan, 1925. Pp. 447. 

Gilbert J. A. Researches on the Mental and Physical Development of 
School Children. Stud. from Yale Psychol. Lab., 1894, 2, 40-100. 
Gilbert, J. A. Researches on School Children and College Students. 
Univ. of Iowa Stud. in Psychol., 1897, 1, 1-39. 

Glenn, I. A Report on the Correlation of Psychological Tests with 
Academic and Manual Subjects. J. of Educ. Psychol., 1922, 13, 496- 
501. 

Gould, R. L. Manual Accuracy in Prevocational School Boys. J. of 
Educ. Psychol., 1917, 8, 439-441. 

Gould, M. C., and Perrin, F. A. C. A Comparison of the Factors In- 
volved in the Maze Learning of Human Adults and Children. J. of 
Exper. Psychol., 1916, 1, 122-154. 

Gruenberg, B. C. Toward the Discovery of Native Talent. School and 
Soc., 1919, 9, 209-211. 

Haines, T. H. Diagnostic Values of Some Performance Tests. Psychol. 
Rev., 1915, 22, 299-306. 

Hancock, J. A. A Preliminary Study of Motor Ability. Ped. Sem., 
1894, 3, 9-29. 

Henmon, V. A. C., and Livingston, W. F. Comparative Variability at 
Different Ages. J. of Educ. Psychol., 1922, 13, 17-29. 


MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 91 


49. Hewes, A. Standardization of the Whipple-Healy Tapping Test. J. 
of Appl. Psychol., 1922, 6, 113-119. 

50. Hunt, J. L., Johnson, B. J., and Lincoln, E. M. Health Education and 
the Nutrition Class. New York: Dutton, 1921. Pp. 281. 

**51,. Johnson, B. J. Experimental Study of Motor Abilities of Children in 
the Primary Grades. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1917. Pp. 62. 

52. Johnson, B. Fatigue Effects as Measured by Sugar Content of Blood. 
J. of Comp. Psychol., 1922, 2, 155-171. 

*53. Johnson, B. J. Mental Growth of Children in Relation to Rate of 
Growth in Bodily Development. New York: Dutton, 1925. Pp. 157. 

54. Johnson, G. E. Contribution to the Psychology and Pedagogy of Fee- 
ble-Minded Children. J. of Psycho-Asth., 1897, 2, 63-81. Also Ped. 
Sem., 1895, 3, 246-301. 

55. Jones, W. F. A Study of Handedness. S. D. Univ. Bull., 1918, No. 14, 
Series 17. Pp. 80. 

56. Judd, C. H. An Experimental Study of Writing Movements. Philos. 
Studien, 1902, 19, 243-259. 

57. Kelly, R. L. Psychophysical Tests of Normal and Abnormal Children. 
Psychol. Rev., 1903, 10, 345-372. 

58. Kirkpatrick, E. A. Individual Tests of School Children. Psychol. Rev., 
1900, 7, 274-280. 

59. Kohnky, E. Preliminary Study of the Effect of Dental Treatment up- 
on the Physical and Mental Efficiency of School Children. J. of Educ. 
Psychol., 1913, 4, 571-578. 

60. Kuhlmann, F. Experimental Studies in Mental Deficiency: Three Cases 
of Imbecility (Mongolian) and Six Cases of Feeblemindedness. Amer. 
J. of Psychol., 1904, 15, 392-447. Also J. of Psycho-Asth., 1904, 9, 1-7. 

61. Lamprey, 8S. E. The Development of Children in Quickness of Percep- 
tion and Movement. Arch. of Psychol., 1909, 2 (No. 12), Pp. 101 (9- 
14). 

+62. Langfeld, H. S. Voluntary Movement under Positive and Negative 
Instruction. Psychol. Rev., 1913, 20, 459-478. 

63. Link, H. C. An Experiment in Employment Psychology. Psychol. 
Rev., 1918, 25, 116-127. 

64. Manuel, H. T. A Study of Talent in Drawing. Bloomington, UL: 
Publie School Pub. Co., 1919. Pp. 152. 

65. MacMillan, D. P. Report of the Department of Child Study and Peda- 
gogic Investigation. Chicago: Chicago Public Schools, 1902. No. 4. 
Pps is: 

66. Mead, C. D. The Relations of General Intelligence to Certain Mental 
and Physical Traits. New York: Teachers College, 1916. Pp. 117. 

67. Mitchell, D., and Forbes, H. Malnutrition and Health Education. Ped. 
Sem., 1920, 27, 36-66. 

68. Morgenthau, D. R. Some Well-known Mental Tests Evaluated and Com- 
pared. Arch. of Psychol., 1922, 7 (No. 52), Pp. 54. 

**69. Muscio, B. Motor Capacity with Special Reference to Vocational 
Guidance. Brit. J. of Psychol., 1922, 18, 157-184. 

70. New York State Board of Charities. Eleven Mental Tests Standard- 
ized. Hugenics and Soc. Welf. Bull., 1915, No. 5. Pp. 87. 

71. Nicholls, E. E. Performances in Certain Mental Tests of Children 
Classified as Underweight and Normal. J. of Comp. Psychol., 1923, 3, 
147-149. 

72. Norsworthy, N. The Psychology of Mentally Deficient Children. Arch. 
of Psychol., 1906, No. 1. Pp. 111. 

73. Norsworthy, N. Suggestions Concerning the Psychology of Mentally 
Deficient Children. J. of Psycho-Asth., 1907, 12, 1-17. 


74, Nutt, H. W. Rhythm in Handwriting. Hlem. School J., 1917, 17, 432- 
445, 


92 


wpa HP 


tt92. 


IOWA STUDIES IN CHILD WELFARE 


Perrin, F. A. C. An Experimental Study of Motor Ability. J. of Exper, 

Psychol., 1921, 4, 24-57. 

Porteus, 8. D. Mental Tests for Feeble-Minded. A New Series. J. of 

Psycho-Asth., 1915, 19, 200-213. 

Porteus, S. D. Motor-Intellectual Tests for Mental Defectives. J. of 

Exper. Ped., 1915, 3, 127-136. 

Porteus, S. D. Mental Tests with Delinquents and Australian Aborig- 

inal Children. Psychol. Rév., 1917, 24, 32-42. 

Porteus, S. D. The Measurement of Intelligence. Six Hundred and 

Fifty-three Children Examined by the Binet and Porteus Tests. J. of 

Educ. Psychol., 1918, 9, 13-32. 

Porteus, 8. D. Porteus Tests; The Vineland Revision. Vineland, N. 

J.: Tr. School Pub. 1919, No. 16. Pp. 44. 

Porteus, 8S. D. The Social Rating Seale. Tr. School Bull., 1921, 18, 

33-39. 

Porteus, S. D. Studies in Mental Deviations. Vineland, N. J.: Tr. 

School Pub., 1922, No. 24. Pp. 276. 

Pyle, W. H. The Examination of School Children. A Manual of 

Directions and Norms. New York: Macmillan, 1913. Pp. 70. 

Pyle, W. H. The Relation of Mental to Physical Development. J. of 

Deling., 1918, 3, 210-212. 

Pyle, W. H. A Study of the Mental and Physical Characteristics of 

the Chinese. School and Soc., 1918, 8, 264-269. 

Pyle, W. H., and Collings, P. E. The Mental and Physical Develop- 

ment of Rural Children. School and Soc., 1918, 8, 534-539. 

Ream, M. J. The Tapping Test, a Measure of Motility. Univ. of Iowa 

Stud. in Psychol., No. 8, 1922, 31, 293-320. 

Reaney, M. J. The Correlation between General Intelligence and Play 

Ability as Shown in Organized Group Games. Brit. J. of Psychol., 

1914, 7, 226-253. 

Rogers, J. F. Mental and Muscular Work. Scient. Mo., 1917, 4, 151-154. 

Rogers, M. C. Adenoids and Diseased Tonsils. Their Effect on Gen- 

eral Intelligence. Arch. of Psychol., 1922, No. 50. Pp. 70. 

Rudisill, E. 8. Correlations between Physical and Motor Capacity and 

Intelligence. School and Soc., 1923, 18, 178-179. 

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Shaw, E.R. Suggestions for Child Study. The Kindergarten and First 

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Sherman, I. C. The Franz Dot Tapping Test as a Measure of Atten- 

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Terman, L. M. Genius and Stupidity. A Study of Some of the In- 

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MOTOR CO-ORDINATION IN YOUNG CHILDREN 93 


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115. Young, H. H. Slot Maze A. Psychol. Clinic, 1922, 14, 73-82. 


Bhi 





UNIVERSITY OF IOWA 
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LB1105 .164 v.3:4 
The development of motor co-ordination 


rinceton Theological Seminary—Speer Library 


P 


1 1012 00141 8179 





